Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Cosmos
by Lasry
Summary: After the destruction of LOGOS in the last war, most thought that the terrorist organization Blue Cosmos perished along with its benefactor. But at the edges of an uneasy peace rumors and more-than-rumors are growing. And as a new crisis looms, the scarred veterans of the Valentine Wars must once again take up arms - even when the enemy is nowhere to be found.
1. Author's Note

First off, I do not own _Mobile Suit Gundam Seed_. All rights and properties belong to their respective owners.

This story takes place several months after and is consistent with the events of _MSGS Destiny_, specifically the Special Edition movie epilogue. If you haven't watched it (or the original, in which case: what are you even doing here?) get out of here and watch them. Then come back and read this. A whole lot of things won't make sense unless you do. Plus there will be massive spoilers and I'm trying to avoid recapping the shows if possible.

While there are original characters, this is in no way a self-insert fic. I've tried very hard to make any OCs distinctive and deep enough to compare with the show's characters. This is all my own interpretation anyway.

Finally, I apologize in advance for any military, scientific, etc. inaccuracies. I'm mostly going off what works dramatically and what works on the page. I'll do what research I can but I'm not going on archive dives. Drop me a line if there are any glaring issues and I'll fix them in the next edit, and I'm open to advice and constructive criticism. I accept reviews, PMs, suggestions, graphic charts, or whatever.

This is at least a _T_ rated story. There are points of major violence and strong language. And maybe a little romance, if you're squeamish. You are warned.

Shall we begin?


	2. Phase 01: Clouds

JULY 26, CE 74

Seven months. Kira had checked the date. Six of them had been spent in training. While his skill and experience as a pilot more than qualified him for the white uniform he now wore as part of ZAFT, there had still been much to learn. He had to see a wider picture than just the view from his cockpit. Military doctrine, warship maneuvering and navigation, assault and defense of fortifications, command structure and protocol, strategy and logistics. He was now formally a commander, with all the responsibility and authority that came with the rank. Sometimes he wished he was still just a pilot. Then he reprimanded himself, since he had chosen to join up after Messiah. It had been to stay near Lacus, of course, but he could have done that as a civilian. Now he had finished his first month on duty, which brought him up to seven months of peace.

He wasn't commanding a ship yet, though it was almost certainly in the cards. For the moment, he and the Strike Freedom were assigned to the _Diana_, the second of the formidable _Minerva_-class of warships going into service as the aging _Nazca_-class ships were phased out as ZAFT's mainstay, instead becoming escorts carriers. Yzak Joule, who had become one of ZAFT's most prestigious commanders following his exemplary service in the Second Bloody Valentine War, was its first captain. The _Diana_ was brand new and, like Kira, finishing up its first month-long tour. They would be rotating back by the end of the week.

It had been a quiet month. No encounters with pirates, raiders, or other hostiles. Not that they'd really expected any. All the same, it gave the rookies a chance to learn life aboard a ship and drill enough so that if contact did occur, they'd be ready. Kira just wished it didn't take so long. He was on board to learn how to run a ship like this one. The next of its class, the _Bellona_, was two thirds of the way finished and the third, the _Juno_, already had its hull laid down. It didn't take a genius to figure it out. Odds were Dearka Elsman would get one, too, being Yzak's first officer. When the time came, Shiho Hahnenfuss would almost certainly take over as XO, having been Yzak's comrade since the end of the first war. He'd expected to hear griping amongst some of the senior officers, who'd been around the military much longer than he, but heard none. It was odd considering how young they were (Yzak was barely twenty), but being veterans of two wars obviously counted for a lot.

He tried to keep busy aboard the ship, either learning his job on the bridge or training with the other pilots. About half the pilots had combat experience while the other was more or less fresh out of the academy. They flew mostly ZAKUs with squadron leaders in GOUFs. But even Yzak's and Dearka's custom units couldn't hold a candle to his Strike Freedom. So when it came time for combat simulations he normally was given his own orders since giving him a squadron would only slow him down. Or he acted as the aggressor and gave the rookies the fight of their lives. When he was off duty he read, or sharpened his computer skills, usually by refining the Strike Freedom's operating system or practicing cyberwarfare, both attack and defense. When he could, he emailed Lacus since voice communication wasn't usually an option for a front-line warship.

He was doing that now, attempting to compose an email, when he received a notification on the ship's network, requesting him to report to the briefing room immediately. Curious, he checked who else the message had been sent to. Dearka and Shiho had also been called. What was this about? The message revealed no clues.

Kira was the third person to arrive, behind Dearka and Yzak. There was a program window up on the briefing room's main screen, with only four blank text fields on it.

"What's this about?" he asked.

Yzak's shoulders were tense, his eyes narrowed. "I don't know. I don't like it. We just received a message from command – priority CORMORANT," he said. CORMORANT was the highest-priority signal there was, which meant that whatever was going on was national-crisis level. "Where's Shiho?"

"I don't know," said Kira. "She wasn't behind me."

Yzak snorted, which would have been offensive if the man's primary mode of communication wasn't hostility. "No rumors from Lacus?" he asked.

"No. In fact, I was in the middle of emailing her when I got called down here."

Dearka saw an opportunity to engage in his favorite pastime: needling. "I'm sure you have more important things to talk about in those. Like how much you miss each other. Or politics. Or how fancy she looks in her newest dress," he said. "Or maybe how fancy she looks without it," he continued, raising an eyebrow.

It took a beat for Kira to realize what he was getting at. "That's none of your business. And politics is _certainly_ not what we talk about."

Yzak snorted again, positively antsy while he waited for Shiho. Followed up by a withering "Whatever."

This gave Dearka, who'd already gotten as much of a rise out of Kira as he was liable to get, all the opening he needed. "You're one to talk, Yzak. At least he _has_ a girlfriend."

"Shut up, Dearka."

"I mean, honestly, I'm worried about you. It's like you don't even care."

"Shut _up_, Dearka."

Dearka was having too much fun now. "So you _do_ care! Progress! Now, are you going to ask her out when we get back to port?"

"Shut up, Dearka!"

"Who?" asked Kira, making a mental note to avoid being interrogated by Dearka at all costs.

"Shiho, duh," answered Dearka. "So, Yzak, you've been practically living with the girl for five years and you _still_ haven't asked her out?"

"She's a valued comrade and friend. That's all!" protested Yzak.

It was Dearka's turn to snort. "And you expect me to believe that? You're not much of a liar."

"SHUT UP, DEARKA!"

"Oh, come on! Shiho would _totally_ go for it-"

He was cut off by the woman herself entering the room, hair still damp from a recent shower. "Go for what?" she asked.

Yzak went pale and silenced his friend with a glare. "Nothing," he growled. "Let's get on with this."

The four of them entered their command codes into the text fields. It was a way to verify their identities and for the military intelligence bureau to restrict the information to just its intended recipients. The text fields were replaced by a video of the Supreme Chairwoman herself, Lacus Clyne.

"My friends," she said, "I am sorry to have to contact you like this."

Kira felt a pang of longing. It had, after all, been a month since they had seen each other face-to-face.

Lacus looked and sounded tired. "I am afraid we have received some troubling news." The screen shifted to a view of an Earth Alliance hangar. "We were given this by an unknown source, which also passed this information to Orb. Whatever motives they may have had, this information has been confirmed through satellite and data taps, though I regret that such a course of action has become necessary."

The video began to play, silently, as the camera apparently lacked an audio receiver. The bustling base had soldiers and vehicles passing the hangar constantly. However, three figures stood outside the pedestrian entrance, totally ignored by the people around them.

"This is the classified projects hangar at the EA's new Cape Town Headquarters," narrated Lacus.

The camera was too far away for the viewers to make out anything more than the genders and hairstyles of the three aberrants. The farthest left, a male, had brown hair, cut severely close to his scalp. The center figure, also male, had very fair hair, slicked back to a single point at the nape of his neck. The rightmost was female. Her hair was forbiddingly black and hung to her shoulders, where it was cut straight across, so perfectly that it almost didn't seem natural.

As they watched, the blonde male touched the other two on the shoulders, who turned to look at him and nod in a gesture of silent affirmation. Then, the three pulled submachine guns from under their uniform jackets and entered the hangar. After a minute or so of silence, the hangar doors suddenly exploded outward. The ruined building belched smoke and flame as ammunition cooked off and mobile suits detonated, the ground shaking from the sheer force. Out of the fire stepped first one mobile suit, then another and another. Despite the fact that all four viewers were experienced pilots, intimately familiar with both ZAFT and the Alliance's equipment, they recognized not one of the suits. Though that was in itself worrying, more so was that each of the three appeared to have phase-shift armor and at least one large caliber cannon. But they had little chance to examine the strange new machines, as the three of them suddenly jetted up and out of the camera's view.

Lacus speaking again was almost a shock, entranced as they were with what they had just seen. Her voice was subdued. "The Alliance has made no announcement regarding what happened. It seems that they are pretending it didn't happen, at least publicly. We do know that they failed to capture or destroy the machines. No group has yet taken responsibility for the attack. I don't have to tell you how serious this is. As such, the _Diana_ is to return to port immediately. Before we take any sort of action, the PLANT council will have to confer with Orb. But as some of our best pilots, I have a feeling that you will be needed soon."

The Supreme Chairwoman smiled sadly, looked down and closed her eyes to end her transmission.

Dearka's voice barely concealed his shock. "Those were…"

"Gundams," said Kira, finishing the sentence. He felt a chill pass through him. Weapons that powerful, stolen? By who? And for what purpose?

Yzak wasted no time, storming out of the room in the direction of the bridge, Shiho trailing in his wake. If he moved any faster, he'd be running.

Dearka simply looked at Kira, a sad expression on his face. "Hell of a way to end a tour, huh?" he said.

Kira certainly agreed.

* * *

Cagalli's face was a study in shocked disbelief. Slowly and unsurprisingly, shock gave way to anger. She shoved herself away from the terminal, though she had in fact intended to push the terminal away and had failed due to the fact that it was sitting on a rather large and sturdy desk. As her chair spun away towards the back wall of her office, she was already at full burn. She immediately called together the cabinet and her military advisors, already running through eventualities in her head as she blitzed out of the room. The intelligence officer who had shown her the video followed her out like a lost puppy. Then she made calls to the people she actually trusted: Murrue Ramius, Mu La Flaga, Erica Simmons, Ledonir Kisaka, and Athrun Zala. Officially, she was advised by the cabinet, but she preferred the perspective of people who actually knew what they were talking about. It wasn't the politicians fault they weren't experts, but things like this certainly needed expert opinions.

Aides rushed to meet with her as she made her way through the halls to the cabinet chambers. She was in full-on commander-in-chief mode now. She sent an attaché to begin preparations to bring the _Archangel_ out of dry-dock. She hoped to hell she wouldn't need it, but it was definitely an escort that would make anyone think twice about interfering in Orb business. She knew Lacus and the council would want a meeting. After all, they'd seen the same intelligence. And sure enough, the ambassador from the PLANTs had notified the Orb government of Lacus' request as soon as it had arrived, conveniently as she was already on the way to speak to the cabinet about that very same thing.

Most of the cabinet had already arrived, as had Kisaka, since they worked in the same building. Murrue, Mu, and Erica were given priority routing from Morganroete and the same for Athrun from Onogoro. They'd be arriving shortly.

As Cagalli reached the head of the conference table, she took a moment to lean on it and take a deep breath. She couldn't appear frazzled or out of control, not now. The Seiran affair had taught her that the hard way. Thus, she was composed and collected as the room came to order. They sat, expectant, all looking down the table at her. She had been intimidated the first time she was in this position. Not anymore.

"Ministers," she began, "we have received some unsettling news. Last night, three advanced Earth Forces mobile suits were stolen from their Cape Town base by unknown aggressors."

Many of the cabinet members were now rather pale. She couldn't blame them.

"The Earth Forces have made no acknowledgement of the theft. We all know how weak the Alliance's member nations have become after Durandal's LOGOS campaign and the destruction of Arzachel. While it may be in their best interests to stay quiet and preserve what power they have, we have to be prepared to defend ourselves. The confidential source we received the information from also passed the knowledge to the PLANTs. They have already requested a meeting. As such, I believe that it is in Orb's best interests to take cooperative action with the PLANTs in order to combat this threat. Objections?"

One or two members were not exactly pleased with the thought, most notably a Seiran cousin, but they all had lived through both wars and were pragmatic enough to know that it was a sensible decision. And considering the Chief Representative's close friendship with the Supreme Chairwoman, it wasn't exactly a surprise, either. And cooperation with the Earth Alliance, if or when it got its act together, was not off the table. In any event, the Orb cabinet was prepared to accept that decision.

One of the Sahakus spoke up. "Have you given any thought to a public statement?" he asked.

Cagalli had considered the matter. "We are, as yet, unaware of the nature of this threat. We ought not to raise a panic over something we are still getting the measure of. Furthermore, upstaging the Alliance military would only further upset the power structure we have to deal with. So we'll wait for the Alliance to make a statement for now."

The ministers accepted this, too. She had a point. None of them were particularly interested in getting on the Earth Alliance's bad side, nor were they unintelligent simply because they were not experts on military policy. Politicians knew a shrewd move when they saw one. And with that the emergency meeting concluded. Law of the land or not, there was only so much that civilian authorities could do in terms of threats like the one they now faced. Border security would be tightened. Early-warning radar stations would be higher on the priority list for funds and personnel. Police forces would be quietly built up and brought up to speed on evacuation procedures. Just in case. Two invasions in three years would make any country at least a bit paranoid.

Waiting back in her office were Athrun, Kisaka, and the others. She sat down heavily at her desk. Being properly political was taxing for Cagalli, but here, now, she could let her guard down.

"You guys have been briefed, right?" she asked.

"Yes," said Athrun, resplendent in his Admiral's uniform, nearly identical to the one she wore in her military capacity.

"Seems awful familiar, doesn't it?" said Mu. He was in civilian clothes, though he remained in the military reserve, and still bore the scars he had as Neo Roanoke. Murrue nodded in agreement with him.

"Yeah, it does," said Cagalli. "That's what has me worried. These people, whoever they are, went to a lot of trouble to obtain them. And with our previous experience with mobile suit theft, I'd say it's pretty clear those were Gundams." Just the word, _Gundam_, dropped the temperature of the room a couple of degrees.

"You will be going into space to meet with Lacus?" asked Kisaka.

"Yes. Some things have to happen face to face. Unless there was a problem, I'd planned to go up on the _Archangel_. I hate to say it, but I'd rather not take a diplomatic shuttle. I'd rather have the firepower and not need it than rely on speed and small size to avoid being hit if it comes down to it."

"Of course," said Murrue. She couldn't fault Cagalli for being cautious. "I'll pack a bag."

"So will I," said Mu, unsurprisingly. "Akatsuki will be there, too."

"And I'll bring the Justice, as well," said Athrun, which seemed to satisfy Kisaka's unspoken concerns over security.

"Anything to add, Ms. Simmons?" asked Cagalli, seeing that their little meeting was all but over.

"Not especially," replied Erica. "You seem to have the situation well enough in hand, from what I can see. Morganroete is done with refits on the _Archangel_ as well as the Akatsuki and Justice, so you should be good to go whenever you need to. We've got some interesting tech undergoing testing now, but it'll be a few weeks before it's ready to show results."

"All right. Thank you," said Cagalli. She stood, a signal that this meeting, too, was over. The important ones never seemed to last very long. Athrun lingered by the door, hoping for a private word. If he had professional objections, he would have voiced them, so whatever he had to say was personal. She joined him and they left together.

"You all right?" he asked. "This is just a little too much like what happened at Armory One."

"I'm okay. Just a little on edge." She led him out onto a southward facing terrace. They were the only people out there, other politicians either still engrossed in their work or out to lunch.

"I can only imagine how the PLANTs are feeling about this. I mean, I trust Lacus to keep things under control but they're probably near panic," said Athrun.

"After Requiem? Almost certainly."

Athrun approached the railing, staring out over the Pacific Ocean. "What's the worst case scenario?" he asked quietly. Cagalli knew he'd already guessed but wanted to hear it from someone else, just to be sure.

"Hit and run strikes," Cagalli said just as quietly. "You're the soldier, you _know_ this. The amount of damage to populated areas, even before response teams could arrive, would be catastrophic. It would be another Destroy situation, but that thing at least had the decency to stand still."

They both silently acknowledged the grim truth and then just as silently agreed to change the subject. The virtues of long association.

"All the same, it'll be nice to see everyone again. I wonder how Kira's getting along in ZAFT?" wondered Cagalli.

"Knowing Kira, he's either thriving or absolutely lost," said Athrun, a hint of warmth and humor returning to his voice. "I doubt Yzak is letting him off easy, even if he did have the scar removed."

Cagalli couldn't help but smile at the thought. If there was anything she'd learned over the past couple years, it was to savor moments where you felt at peace, however fleeting. This was one of those moments. She closed her eyes and let the sea breeze flutter through her hair. That wind also brought puffy gray rainclouds that soon covered the sun. The vagaries of Pacific weather. She sighed.

"Come on," she said, beckoning back inside the government palace. "We've got places to be."

Athrun rather reluctantly followed her in. He spent much of his time in administration with the Orb Self-Defense Forces and savored whatever time he could get out-of-doors.

"You know who's responsible," he said. It wasn't a question.

"It's a short list. And one group certainly earned the top spot," she said. "I never did believe Blue Cosmos was dead. They covered their tracks too well." They'd both spent more than their fair share of time dealing with the terrorists.

"Ideals die hard. We know that better than anyone," replied Athrun. "_Junius 7_ – both times – was proof of that."

Neither of them could say anything after that.

* * *

By unwritten rule, the elevator to the council chambers on Aprilius was deadly quiet. There was, very purposefully, a single elevator to the council chamber itself, out of which branched the offices of the councilors themselves. It was an intimidating atmosphere for outsiders to enter, and despite Shinn's several meetings with Chairman Durandal during the war, he was still definitely an outsider. He and Luna had only been up here once before, when Supreme Chairwoman Clyne had been sworn into office, a grand ceremony that had gone on rather longer than it needed to, a common ailment of political functions. Then, they had shared the ride up with Meyrin, Athrun, Kira, and a few of the pilots from the _Eternal_ whose names had escaped them. Now, the car was occupied by three taciturn men in suits who stood as far from each other as possible and a purple-coated general that the two redcoats did not recognize. The atmosphere was far less amiable than their previous trip.

Shinn and Luna were now working as a special operations duo, nominally the 'Asuka Team,' which hadn't earned them much points with the ZAFT old guard, but was accepted and quietly encouraged by other Terminal members in ZAFT command, namely Andrew Waltfeld. 'Asuka Team' was something of a misnomer as well, as Shinn didn't really lead Luna as much as backed her up when she needed it and vice versa. They were intimidatingly competent in simulations and maneuvers but had yet to receive an official mission, courtesy of the peace settlement. Which is why they were worried when they had been called up to the Supreme Chairwoman's office.

The last time they had met the Chairwoman had been in Orb, at the memorial. Of course, she hadn't been the Chairwoman then. No, she was just an intimidatingly beautiful idol singer who also happened to be the leader of one of the most important independent factions in the world. No big deal. Now she was their boss, which was just another layer of awkward. Shinn had a hard enough time in normal conversation. Politics was his nightmare.

They had exited the elevator and passed down the hall, through the security checkpoints and reached the door to the Chairwoman's office, a solid edifice of dark wood that hid steel plates and vault quality locks. Luna knocked. There was the sound of heavy bolts being withdrawn, a loud _CLUNK_.

"Come in!" came a pleasantly pitched voice that could only be Lacus Clyne. Shinn and Luna looked at each other, shrugged, and pushed open the door. The first thing that greeted them appeared at first glance to be a pink softball that was in the process of throwing itself at Shinn, who caught it before it impacted his face. He stared at it, now able to make out two beady optical sensors and aerodynamic flaps that fluttered in his hands.

"Haro! Whatever!" it chirped. Clearly, the security consultants had failed to convince her to leave the damn thing at home with the rest.

"Excuse me," said Lacus. "Mister Pink!"

Obediently, the Haro dropped to the ground and rolled to her ankles, then jumped up into her lap behind her desk. Shinn almost expected it to purr like a cat and was almost disappointed when it didn't. It seemed so fitting. Belatedly, Shinn matched Luna's salute.

"Thank you," said Lacus, returning their salute. "Please sit down." She gestured towards the two comfortable-looking chairs in front of her desk. Behind her, a large viewscreen, which the two redcoats had initially thought to be a wall, turned on. Her face, without quite losing the good-naturedness that had always been present in her public appearances, hardened and became quite serious. "This briefing is classified Top Secret, priority CORMORANT. This is not to be discussed with anyone outside of the Supreme Council, ZAFT HICOM, and the crew of the battleship _Diana_. The arriving Orb military representatives are also cleared, as their objectives are the same as ours."

Shinn's gut clenched a little at the mention of Orb. It was reflex. He couldn't, and wouldn't, say he really hated the country anymore, but it wasn't something that he could just drop, either. He could at least tolerate it, though, and that was progress.

"Ms. Chairwoman-" began Shinn.

She held her hand up. "Lacus, please. We're friends, are we not?"

_Fair enough_. "Lacus, what exactly _is_ our objective?"

Luna stiffened a little at that, but Lacus didn't seem to mind his impatience.

"Yesterday," said Lacus, "three prototype Earth Forces mobile suits were stolen. I'm sure you can appreciate the seriousness."

She played the footage of the raid on the viewscreen behind her.

"Another Armory One situation?" asked Luna, once it had finished.

"Precisely. No group has claimed responsibility for the theft and the EA has made no statement. Considering your experience in this type of situation and your skill as pilots, we are considering assigning you to the pursuit/quick-reaction force in order to counter this threat. However," she turned her gaze directly on Shinn now without changing her tone of voice, "this may involve cooperation with Orb. Will that be a problem?"

"No, ma'am," said Shinn. And he was completely honest. Or was trying to be, anyway, and that was the important thing. If Lacus was bothered by the formality that she'd previously waved off, she gave no sign.

"Excellent." Lacus was genuinely pleased. "The battleship _Diana_ is returning to port in the next day or so. You will be assigned to that ship, which will be escorting a PLANT delegation to a meeting with Orb's chief representative, where we will discuss the precise action we will take. Thank you." She bowed her head politely, a clear dismissal.

As the two returned to the elevator, Luna spoke up first. "Are you sure you're alright working with Orb?" she asked

Before Messiah, he would've snapped at her, angry that someone presumed to question his motives. Now, he gave a quiet and definite answer. "Yes. It was bound to happen, eventually." He had a far-away look in his eyes. "I won't break the promise I made at the memorial."

Luna had taken Shinn's past for granted, perhaps forgetting that the memorial was also where Shinn's family had died during the first war. She should have known. Any promise he made there would have immense meaning to him. "Well, that's very mature of you," she said. "We'll make a diplomat out of you yet." She decided to risk a joke. "Or at least someone I won't be ashamed to be seen with in public."

"I know," he said. "Hmph. Maybe I'll even be halfway respectable someday, too." That, too, was new since Messiah. He hadn't been able to stand jokes at his expense. Luna put her arm around his shoulder and gave him an affectionate squeeze. Shinn was slowly coming out of his shell. Or maybe… Luna had first met Shinn at the academy, so she hadn't known him when his family was still around. Maybe some of the old Shinn was shining through now. Despite the news they had just been given, it was a heartening thought.

The elevator ride back down was just as silent as it had been on the way up, though only the two ZAFT reds were inside. Luna rested her head on Shinn's shoulder as the elevator descended. They split up once they reached the ground.

"I've got some supplies I've been needing to get. Shampoo and things," she explained. "Anyway, if we're deploying soon, I ought to stock up now. I'll see you back at base in an hour or two." She waved and took an autotaxi in the direction of Aprilius' shopping district. Shinn took one in the opposite direction, which brought him near the colony's port and the Aprilius garrison, where he and Luna's quarters were. Since the _Minerva_ had been brought down during the Battle of Messiah, they had been shuffled around various PLANT garrisons while the chain of command, itself in the process of being remodeled, tried to figure out what to do with them. They had been in Aprilius about a month. By policy team members roomed together while on base, which meant he and Luna technically lived together. Sometimes they could be incredibly close and familiar and comfortable with each other, like on the elevator, and other times it was a rather awkward situation and they nervously avoided each other. To outside observers on the base, it appeared that they were an on-and-off couple, though they had never actually said so and neither of the two would admit it.

Still, reflected Luna, they hadn't had a huge blow-out fight and that was something to be thankful for. She was searching a department store for the things she considered most essential to life aboard ship: shampoo, toothpaste, facial tissues and the like. She tried to guess what Shinn might forget and then gave up. He'd get by. He always seemed to, somehow. So she focused on herself. It was a pride thing. Like the miniskirt.

* * *

"Admiral," greeted the young commander, raising a salute.

"Commander Halley," replied the admiral, returning the salute, then pulling out a file and placing it carefully on the desk between them. "You've been briefed, Commander?"

"Yes sir."

"Good. The _Odysseus_ is waiting for you to take command. Any questions before you set out?"

"Sir, what pilots have been assigned under my command?"

"This is all in the file, but let me see…" The admiral opened the folder and slid his finger down the crew roster. "Here we are." He cleared his throat. "Lieutenant Ricardo Duomo, Lieutenant Trey Thomas, and Ensign Natasha Vela will be your heavy hitters, I think. There are three others but they will have base machines. Is that all?"

"Um, sir, Duomo?"

"So you've heard of him? Yes, he is a troublemaker, but very, _very_ effective. Don't hesitate to put him in his place if you think the situation calls for it. The other two shouldn't give you too much trouble."

"Very well, sir."

"You are dismissed, commander." The admiral closed and handed him the folder.

"Yes sir." Commander Halley stepped back, saluted, and turned on his heel, as was only proper.


	3. Phase 02: To Take Up Arms

**MINOR EDIT: Changed the name **_**Juno**_** to **_**Diana**_**, because the Goddess of the Hunt makes more sense as the namesake of a warship than the Goddess of Family and Motherhood.**

JULY 27, CE 74

The doorbell rang and, for once, Miriallia was at home to answer it. Usually, she was out during the day, in town or across the sea trying to build a photo portfolio. But she'd just finished a commission, cashed the check and decided to luxuriate with ice cream and old movies. And the doorbell rang. She wasn't expecting anyone. She'd paid her rent last week, so it wouldn't be the landlord and she hadn't ordered anything so it wasn't a deliveryman…

Oh. "Captain Ramius!" she said through force of habit, forgetting that the Murrue was technically a civilian at the moment. She was suddenly very conscious of her pajama pants and ratty t-shirt. "Uh, come in!"

It wasn't a particularly large apartment, but that hadn't been particularly important to her since she traveled a lot. She showed Murrue to the small kitchen table then rushed to turn off the TV and reseal the ice cream. The captain politely ignored her until she was ready to actually sit down and have a proper conversation.

"So, uh, what can I do for you?" asked Miriallia as she pulled out a chair for herself.

"Well, Cagalli has seen the need to reactivate the _Archangel_, and I agree with her. Things might get very sticky soon and Orb needs to be prepared. I'm here to offer you a position aboard her once again." Murrue had a resigned expression on her face and held up her hands to stall Miriallia's reply. "I understand completely if you aren't interested and I can't tell you much unless you accept. But I can tell you that Mu, Neumann, Murdock and several others have already agreed to return. And I can tell you that ZAFT will not be our enemy and we're trying to avoid antagonizing the Alliance."

Mir leaned back and tried to digest the information. _If old hands are coming back, they see this mission as important. And since it won't be fighting the EA or ZAFT that means…_

"Terrorists?" she asked out loud.

"Something like that," was the reply.

"So a SAD run, then. What are they after?"

"That's classified," said Murrue kindly. "I can't tell you unless you accept the commission."

_Commission?_ "Shame on you for playing with my journalistic instincts like that."

Murrue only smiled. They both realized she would accept, in the end, and Miriallia just wanted to know what she was getting into before actually saying so.

"You know, I'm still in the reserve. You could've just called up my ticket," said Miriallia.

"I know, but I wanted to ask you personally."

"All right, what commission?"

"Lieutenant Commander. As I recall, you finished out the war as an ensign. A two rank jump with the pay increase to match."

Mir chuckled and leaned her elbow on the table, resting her head on her outstretched hand. "Well, you make it very tempting. What position will I be in? CIC again?"

"Executive Officer."

"What?" Mir's elbow slipped off the table as she lost her balance.

"I mean it. XO."

"But, uh, what about Mu? Or…or… Neumann? I'm sure they would be good XOs! I mean, uh…" her voice trailed off as she tried to marshal her thoughts.

"Mu is going to be busy with the Akatsuki and Neumann was never interested in the position. And you have more experience on the _Archangel _than any of the Orb crewmembers. You're the girl for the job, Mir."

Mir couldn't argue with that. "Well, uh… yeah. Okay." She nodded firmly.

"Great. Glad to have you." The two women shook hands across the table. "And I'm sorry I have to spring this on you, but we're on a rather tight schedule and the ship leaves tomorrow morning at 0930."

"Aye, Captain." Mir grinned.

Once Murrue had left, Miriallia returned to the movie, not knowing what else to do. It didn't take long for her to realize she shouldn't be bothering. Instead, she retrieved her uniform and, after making sure all of the pieces were present and clean, packed in a duffel bag, followed by her camera. Then she called her parents and swore them to secrecy. Then she went out to visit her old haunts, if only briefly, because she had the feeling she wouldn't be home for a long time.

* * *

The _Diana_ gave Shinn déjà vu. He hadn't yet decided if that was a good thing or not. He'd known that pieces of the _Minerva_ had been salvaged and used to speed up the construction of its sister ship, but hadn't quite realized what that meant. Now he knew. The _Diana_ looked like the _Minerva_'s ghost: blue where the first had been red, a lighter gray than the first's darker coloration, and practically the same silhouette. The only major structural difference was the lack of a centerline catapult for an Impulse-type machine. That project had gone down in flames with the _Minerva_.

Since neither Shinn nor Lunamaria's Gundams had survived the Battle of Messiah, Shinn was flying a GOUF for the time being and Luna had returned to her red ZAKU. They were watching their suits being loaded onto the _Diana_ from the departure lounge.

Luna hadn't exactly been happy to step down to a ZAKU.

"This stupid thing is so vulnerable to ECM that I'm surprised I hit _anything_ with my cannon!" she'd griped. And it was true. ZAKUs were one of the most inaccurate suits of the war, thanks to being completely unprepared for the electronic countermeasures that had evolved rapidly during the Second Bloody Valentine. For his part, Shinn wasn't exactly pleased with the GOUF's performance and took solace in the hope that HICOM might, if properly impressed, give them a lovely prototype. So far the jury was out on that one.

The time came for personnel to board. Shinn and Luna fell in line behind several _Diana_ crewmen who had spent what little time they had ashore. One of the men, a green coat, tried to flirt with Luna. Her red uniform appeared to have passed unregistered.

"So…" said the wannabe pick-up artist, "New aboard ship, huh?" He was using an especially deep voice in an attempt to increase his sex appeal.

"Not gonna happen, hot shot," said Luna, already bored of the guy.

Sarcasm was apparently lost on him as well. He slid back in front of Shinn and put his arm around Luna. "You wound me, babe. Even gonna give me a chance? We could have _fun_…"

"Nope. I'm afraid that I'm not interested," said Luna, squirreling out of his grasp.

No was clearly not a part of the man's vocabulary. "Don't be ridiculous. A woman as pretty as you are requires companionship, if only to keep all the other jealous men away."

At this point Shinn stepped in. "Look, _pal_," he said in his typical blunt, derisive tone, "she's not interested. So you'd best walk away. Now."

"Ooh! Competition!" _Now_ he had figured out sarcasm. "I think you're out of your league here, buddy, so I'd advise _you_ to step back before you got hurt." He emphasized his words with a shove, hard enough to make Shinn take a step back and enough to mark him as a threat. Shinn bristled and dropped into a fighting stance.

However, he didn't get the chance to make a move as, to the flirty green coat's eternal surprise (and not remotely to Shinn's), Luna stepped up and broke the meathead's nose with a solid right hook. "I said not interested. And _you'd_ best remember."

The man, his ego and body wounded, promptly fled to staunch the bleeding from his nose.

"Man, they say _I'm_ violently protective," said Shinn, watching the green coat flee.

"Don't give me that. You were going to do the exact same thing," said Luna.

"Well… yeah, but I was going to kick him and crack a rib or two," he said. "Your way works, too," he added after a moment. Luna simply rolled her eyes in response.

The pair managed to board and find their quarters without further incident. They had received officer's quarters, similar to what they'd had on the _Minerva_ and similarly located, unsurprising considering that the _Juno_ was built from only slightly modified plans of the original. Once again, they had been assigned together. ZAFT generally tried to avoid coed room assignments, if only for efficiency's sake, but it wasn't unheard of, either. It was a carryover from when the organization had just been a militia protecting the PLANTs, rather than the well-trained, well-equipped modern military it had become over the course of two wars.

An announcement came over the ship's PA system. Shinn recognized Commander Joule's voice. "All personnel, _Diana_ is leaving port in fifteen minutes. Asuka Team to the bridge immediately."

Shinn groaned. They were probably getting brought up on charges for clocking the idiot in line. Luna, midway through unpacking her duffel, simply sighed and hung her head in defeat.

Luna began defending herself as soon as the elevator door opened. "Look, if this is about what happened in the boarding line, he totally started it."

Kira, Dearka, Shiho, and Yzak shared a confused look. "Something happened in line?" asked Dearka.

Luna was caught flat-footed. "Wait. You mean…" She smacked herself on the forehead. "Oh, dammit…" Realizing that the four officers were still staring at her, she reluctantly told her side. "Well, this green coat was getting handsy and didn't understand the word no. Then he tried to pick a fight with Shinn, so I belted him one."

The bridge was silent for a moment. Then a high pitched voice shouted out "Luna, you _punched_ someone?" Everyone now turned to look at the shouter, Meyrin Hawke, who blushed at the attention. She decided to just keep going and try to defuse the embarrassment. "And when did you get assigned to this ship, anyway? As the ship's information officer, I ought to have been informed!"

"Yesterday," said Shinn, still a little confused.

"And that was classified," snapped Yzak.

Meyrin blushed deeper. "Oh," she said in a small voice.

"Whatever," continued Yzak, rolling his eyes. "It sounds to me like a crew member sexually harassed a superior officer and was justly disciplined by said officer after failing to obey orders to desist in his attentions. Does that work for everyone?"

There were no complaints.

"Good," finished Yzak. Just because he'd broken his vengeance fixation at the end of the First Bloody Valentine didn't mean he couldn't enjoy it when someone else got their just desserts.

"Well, we only called you up here because we figured you ought to be here when the Chairwoman arrived," said Kira.

"Speak of the devil…" said Dearka jokingly as the elevator door opened again, this time revealing Lacus, Mister Pink, and Andrew Waltfeld in a fine purple-and-gold uniform.

"Madame Chairwoman," said Yzak, inclining his head respectfully. You could count on one hand the people Yzak treated with respect, and Lacus had earned the honor. "General Waltfeld, we weren't expecting you."

"Are you ever?" said the General with a wry grin. "I'm her escort." When Kira frowned at this, he continued. "Wasn't my idea and it was either me or a squadron of guys in suits and sunglasses, kid." He shrugged. "Nobody was arguing with me, especially when I pointed out what happened when you guys got jumped after the Break the World incident. And hey, when I saw a chance to catch up with everyone on the _Archangel_, I took it."

"Welcome aboard the _Diana_, General," said Dearka, stepping forward to shake the man's hand.

"Shall we?" asked Lacus, flashing a glance at Kira as she settled into one of the chairs around the tactical display.

"Yes, ma'am," said Yzak. "IO?"

"All sections report ready, Captain," said Meyrin.

"All right then. Helm, engines to twenty percent, then increase to full once we clear port." He thumbed the intercom button. "_Diana_ is heading out."

* * *

The Kaguya Mass Driver was essentially a very upscaled version of the _Archangel_'s deck catapults. It made Murrue glad that she wasn't catapulted more often. Mu, strapped in next to her, didn't seem to mind the jostling and g-forces one bit. He flashed a jaunty smile, which made her feel a little better. Miriallia, new rank insignia proudly displayed on her shoulder, was strapped into the CIC bay with an amused expression as she watched the novice operators try not to pass out from the acceleration. The new deputy captain seemed to be treating the launch as a military-sanctioned rollercoaster ride.

As the _Archangel_ reached the apex of the mass driver's arc, the gunners fired the Lohengrin cannons, creating the positronic interference effect that would, essentially, allow the ship to accelerate through vacuum rather than through the atmosphere. For the crew, this had the effect of smoothing out the ride, since there was no turbulence in vacuum. Within a minute, they had reached the border of space, fifty miles up, and in the next, stable orbit. Murrue relaxed and let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding as the crew unstrapped and made their way to their active stations. Neumann already had the course laid-in to the navigation station and the _Archangel_ fired its thrusters, now free from Earth's gravity, and began to pick its way through the debris belt towards the moon. It would be several hours before they reached Copernicus, where they'd rendezvous with _Diana._

Mu unbuckled his restraints and pushed himself up and out of his chair to float calmly in the middle of the room.

"The first float of a trip is always the best," he said, drifting past Murrue.

She rolled her eyes. "How's she feeling, helm?" Murrue asked, referring to the ship.

"Lighter and more responsive than ever, Captain. Morganroete knows their stuff."

"Good to hear. I'm going to check in with Cagalli and Athrun. XO, you have the conn."

"Aye, ma'am," said Miriallia. "I have the conn." She pushed out of the lower bay and settled into the vacant command chair. Her first command experience. She was thankful that it was relatively low pressure at the moment.

Murrue smiled a small smile and left the bridge. Mu followed behind her.

"You think she's ready for the job?" he asked.

"I wouldn't put her in the position if I didn't think she was ready. Besides, you agreed with me the _last_ time you brought it up."

Mu shrugged. "Well ,yeah, I did. It's just a little surreal for me, that's all. Maybe a little bit of me still thinks of her as a civilian from Heliopolis."

"Will that be a problem, Captain La Flaga?"

"Not at all. I'm used to hearing her voice in my ear; she'll just be giving orders now, too."

The two captains made their way through the corridors down to the crew deck, where the Justice pilot and Chief Representative were currently ensconced in the officers' lounge.

"I don't envy Cagalli's position," said Murrue. "She's making the right call, but it's going to upset a lot of people: diehard conservatives in the parliament, anyone angry at ZAFT for Operation Fury, isolationists… it's a mess. She's got public opinion for the moment, but soon enough the dissenters are going to make their voices heard."

"And who knows how the Earth Alliance is going to react if they find out," replied Mu. "LOGOS or no, Coordinator hate isn't going to die down in a hurry. If it comes down to it, we can only hope that the new government sees sense, but they might not have a choice." He sighed. "This could go to all kinds of hell in a hurry."

"And she knows it, Mu."

"Yeah. She's a pretty good politician for a teenager. Better than me, anyway."

"Well, you've seemed diplomatic enough for me, when the situation calls for it."

"Why, thank you, Captain." He gave her a little mock bow. "I've been practicing just for you."

Murrue rolled her eyes again and entered the lounge. Cagalli and Athrun didn't notice the captains immediately, due to the deep conversation they were having. Judging from the atmosphere in the room, it was not too dissimilar to the conversation she had just finished.

"Oh," said Cagalli, having just registered their arrival. "Captain Ramius, Captain La Flaga." She dispensed with the formality once the door had closed, shutting the conversation off from the public ear. "Everything all right?"

"Fine," said Murrue, taking a seat in one of the padded chairs, one of the little perks of being an officer. "We've got several hours before we get to Copernicus and I thought I'd give Mir some time at the helm."

"Already?" asked Athrun.

She shrugged. "No time like the present. She's smart. She'll call down if there's something she can't handle."

Cagalli and Athrun exchanged looks that seemed to be the equivalent of a shrug and a '_Why not._'

"We were discussing long-term policy," prompted Athrun.

"Right," said Cagalli, getting back on track. "I was curious about what you two thought of the whole thing."

"I'm not sure what to make of everything, yet," said Mu. "There are simply too many unknowns. But there were some real crazies in Blue Cosmos." He suddenly seemed older, weighed down. The scars seemed starker, now, contrasting much more heavily against the normal color of his skin. "They wouldn't just give up."

Everyone in the room knew that Mu was bothered by the time he'd lived as Neo Roanoke. Even after breaking the Blue Cosmos conditioning, it was still something that haunted him. He hid it well most of the time, but now it came through in full force. He'd never quite forgiven himself for the things he'd done, despite those being the actions of, essentially, a completely different person. He'd trimmed his hair back into something resembling his old style, but Murrue knew that the guilt was the reason he'd kept the scars. He felt that erasing them, pretending to be the old Mu, would be disrespectful to the people he'd hurt as Neo. Memories would ambush him during private moments. Sometimes, he'd wake with a start to check if Murrue was really there, and not a memory or delusion, seeking evidence to prove to himself that he wasn't Neo any longer.

And, as Neo, he'd taken orders directly from the head of Blue Cosmos. It made him the closest thing to an inside source they had. When he said that Blue Cosmos wasn't dead and was now beholden to no one but itself, Athrun, Cagalli, and Murrue believed him. In a way, it made him feel better. Trust was something hard to come by in a terrorist group and receiving it now was another reason to be sure that he really was Mu.

Murrue chose her next few words carefully. "There's no use in worrying about it now. Even if it was Blue Cosmos, they still have to figure out how to properly maintain and use their acquisitions. That gives us a few days to find out more, at least."

This seemed to snap Mu out of his funk. "Yes. You're right," he said, seeming to relax, scars seeming to fade a little. There was a bar in the officers' lounge, a new addition. He went to it now, pulled a bottle of rum and a glass. He poured a little, for nerves, and no one begrudged him the drink. Then he put it away. The liquor seemed to do him good, bringing him most of the way back to normal. Weight seemed to lift away from his shoulders and he stood a little straighter. Maybe it was the light, but it seemed to Murrue that his hair was a little more golden than it had been before.

"Well, we ought to prepare a public statement, just in case anything leaks out," said Athrun.

"You don't need me for that, do you?" asked Mu. "I'm a pilot, not a PR guy."

"Why? Did you have something pressing to do?" asked Cagalli, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

He edged toward the door. "I rather had my heart set on taking a nap…"

"Please, Mu," snorted Murrue. "You've only been awake for three hours on a solid _nine_ of sleep."

He elbowed the door control. "That's true," he admitted, "but you can never have too much sleep on deployment! Have fun playing politics!" He snaked out the door, giving Murrue a cheeky wink as the door hissed shut.

Definitely back to normal, all right.

* * *

By her next shift, Meyrin was reasonably confident that her earlier outburst had been overlooked, thank God. Embarrassing herself in front of the whole bridge crew and command staff was one of her nightmares. Damn her sister and her violent impulses!

The _Diana_ would be approaching the rendezvous within the next hour. She supposed that meant the_ Archangel_ wasn't far off. At the thought of that ship, she idly wondered if Athrun would be on board, but shut down that train of thought immediately. He probably would be. With Cagalli. She'd be lying if she said she didn't feel at least a twinge of jealousy, but she had tried to move on from her one-sided crush these past few months and had done a rather admirable job of it in her opinion. She shook her head hard and refocused on the comms terminal, waiting for contact from the _Archangel_.

The past few months had kept her busy. An intelligence and data specialist, especially one with her résumé, was constantly in demand. She had done contract work, sanctioned by ZAFT, as an analyst for civilian law enforcement tracking smuggling rings. Then she had been recruited and offered a full-time assignment in ZAFT intelligence that she had declined in favor of becoming the combat operator on the _Diana_. She couldn't quite pass up the adventure of serving on a warship. It helped her feel closer to Lunamaria. And in her experience, mobile suit pilots were probably the most fascinating people in the military, so she took the opportunity to perhaps get close enough and snag one for herself. The problem, and she kicked herself for this often, was that she was too shy to actually go out and meet them.

Meyrin was, however, an excellent observer and judge of human nature. As such, over the past month on deployment, she'd gotten to know her fellow bridge crew fairly well. Philip, the helmsman, was a font of stories when off-duty. Clarisse was a motor mouth, which contrasted with her careful and considered work as navigator. The sensor officer was named Jon, an adrenaline junkie who nursed a crush on Clarisse. Lev, the weapons tech, was mostly notable for his black humor. They all worked well together, posting one of the highest efficiency ratings in the fleet.

Of course, that was also due to the extraordinary competence of her commanders. She thought of Yzak as stern, precise, and rather rude, but he was also clever and unorthodox, often surprising her with his depth of thought. He was also clearly smitten with Squadron Commander Hahnenfuss, a fact that amused Meyrin to no end, that behind all his bluster, he was just as clueless as the rest of them when it came to relationships. Kira was less complicated. Of everyone on board, she had known him the longest, having worked with him at the end of the last war. He was still new to authority, treating subordinates as equals and phrasing orders as suggestions. He was getting better, though. And Dearka… she wouldn't admit it, but she'd developed something of a soft spot for him. She enjoyed it when he gleefully drove Yzak berserk. He was confident and easily social, excellent at reading people. He was also disarmingly handsome and single.

She stole a glance at him now, relaxed in his chair near the fore of the bridge. Kira and Lacus chatted around the tactical display behind her and General Waltfeld was on the hangar deck with Yzak, most likely talking shop. Shinn, Luna, and Shiho were currently taking their turn on standby, and would be the first pilots to deploy if they came under attack in the next half-hour, when the Harve Team would take over the job.

She did a quick check of the airwaves, and was relieved to discover that the _Archangel_ had made no attempt to make contact yet. She hadn't missed anything while she was daydreaming.

The moon loomed large outside the windows. It was possible to see Copernicus City from this distance, but only indistinctly, a patch of color and light on the otherwise dull and gray lunar surface. The last time she had been to Copernicus had been in the last weeks of the Second Bloody Valentine. The visit had not ended well, but the shopping she had been able to do before everything went south was excellent. She was not optimistic about the chances of going ashore on this trip, though. This mission was supposed to be kept quiet, if not exactly secret. And dispersing the crew into civilian sectors would only amplify the risk of exposure. She doubted that Captain Joule had a high opinion of such activities anyway. A shame.

Meyrin now was starting to pick up traffic on the frequency that she had been told the _Archangel_ would be using. It was, of course, encoded. Wouldn't want just anyone listening in. She ran the signal through the decrypting algorithm, and then scrubbed any interference from lingering N-Jammer emissions and solar flares.

"Commander Elsman, we're picking up a communiqué from the _Archangel,_" she reported.

"Thank you, Meyrin," said Dearka, which sent a little thrill through her. "Patch it through to me, I'll handle it." He glanced at the ship's time. "It appears that Captain Joule is a little _busy_." Some would term that remark insubordinate, but that was about par for the course for Dearka. ZAFT was more lenient than the stricter, more disciplined Earth Forces, but Dearka got away with it mostly because he and Yzak were old friends and had more than proved himself as a rock-steady soldier when in action. Even if the Captain ire was raised, everyone knew it was mere irritation than outright anger, a subtle gradation, which he reserved for situations that would actually require disciplinary action.

A woman's voice came over the speakers. It sounded vaguely familiar to Meyrin, but she couldn't match it to a face. Then she looked over at Dearka, who had a strange look on his face. She would've said he looked nervous if that description wasn't so at-odds with her image of him.

"_Diana_, this is the _Archangel_. We are currently inbound at heading mark thirty, green, alpha. Over," said the _Archangel_ officer. It was an audio only link, since they were too far for a stable video link.

It took a moment for Dearka to reply. "_Archangel_, this is _Diana_, we've got you loud and clear. That you, Miriallia?"

_Oh no_, thought Meyrin.

The return was distinctly frosty. "Dearka." The woman on the other end sighed. "It's been, what, two years now?"

"Yeah," said Dearka. He swallowed. "Something like that."

_Ohno ohno ohno ohno ohno ohno ohno ohno ohno ohno ohno ohno ohno ohno…_

Kira and Lacus looked up, also recognizing the voice. They gave Dearka sympathetic looks, but declined to comment. Now Meyrin put the name and voice together. She remembered, now. The _Archangel_'s combat operator.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised," said Miriallia. "You always do seem to show up in the most awkward spot for me."

_God __**Damn**__it!_ Meyrin nearly swore out loud, too, but clamped her hand down on her mouth and looked around quickly to see if anyone noticed her lapse in composure. No one did. They were all staring at Dearka as he, for once, fumbled his way through a conversation.

"Well…" he said, about to try to defend himself. But Mir cut him off.

"Don't even start. If we have time, we'll talk about it later. This isn't the time or place. Just give me your heading."

Lacking any other option, Dearka gave it to her and the link was abruptly terminated.

_Dammit!_ thought Meyrin again. _Figures! He's friends with Athrun! Of __**course**__ he had one who got away! Damn Le Creuset team must be cursed! That's so __**typical**__! Why, why, why do I keep falling for men with complicated love lives!? Gah!_ Throughout her whole mental tirade she kept her face carefully calm when she really wanted to beat her head against the console. And maybe kick something for good measure.

"You heard her, helm. We've got a rendezvous to keep," said Dearka. He did not seem particularly happy about it.


	4. Phase 03: Blood Dagger

JULY 27, CE 74

Ric stared down empty space, waiting for something, _anything_ to make a move. He searched each quadrant of his view methodically. While he much preferred fast, frenetic combat, he was experienced enough to know that a pilot who was not aware of his surroundings was usually a dead pilot by the end of the encounter. So he searched and his trigger finger itched and he wondered what they'd put up against him now. Pirates in GINNs? Redcoats in ZAKUs? Patrols were such iffy things. He checked his radar. Nothing. Maybe nothing was all there was, but they wouldn't have had him sortie if they thought nothing was out there. If there was nothing then they would've sent out a rookie, so the pilot could get experience with the catapults and to mess with his head. The veteran pilots took every opportunity to mess with the newbie pilots' heads, following long and storied (unofficial) military tradition. But they wouldn't send out an elite pilot like him on a ghost run, so that meant there was something out there he had to handle. And it hadn't made a move yet. Ric wished it would get on with it. Dinner was starting soon and getting stuck out on patrol would only increase the odds that he would get reheated scraps rather than the relatively nice food being cooked for the first time right about now.

To his four o'clock and his eight, respectively, sat Trey and Tasha in their suits, facing out, doing roughly the same thing he was in an attempt to prevent anything from sneaking up on their flight of three. They drifted slowly together, maneuvering only minimally, just enough to stay on the same course, and hopefully little enough that they were invisible to any sensors currently aimed in their general direction. The waiting was nerve-wracking; every bit of random dust that caught the light might have been an enemy making its way up on them.

They could have gone more active, spread out, swept the area, but there was too much open space to cover, too many directions for something to hit them from. Their thruster emissions would be picked up by any thermal sensor (and operator) worth its salt. And more worryingly, whatever was out there knew it, was following the same strategy. If there was anything out there. If. But if there was something out there, it was beginning to look like it was pretty savvy, because a less experienced pilot would have stopped gathering data and jumped them already. It had already been ten minutes since they'd been catapulted off the hangar deck, their initial burn covered by the carrier's much larger heat signature, then they had switched to inertial flight, formed up in their triangle, and waited. All they needed was a second's warning, just a little giveaway, and they'd pounce. All three were experienced dogfighters, and in that sort of situation, you had fractions of seconds to make your move or you'd be dead. It was really no wonder that Coordinators excelled at it, though they were all mortal. All of them could be beaten. They just needed that second, maybe a little more or maybe a little less. But that was it.

There was a little piece of debris out there in the middle distance, barely close enough to be seen by the naked eye. It had some sort of reflective surface on it, a mirror or solar panel or something. It was also rotating, probably the incredibly unlikely victim of a micrometeoroid strike despite the vast distances between it and anything else in space. The mirror or whatever-it-was would occasionally catch some light, reflecting off the lunar surface or simply light that had made it past Earth and reflect it directly towards Rico in his suit. It was a pain in the ass, and it was _something_ to look at and so he found his eye drawn to it. He knew it wasn't good policy but it wasn't a strictly conscious decision, either, like checking out an attractive female crew member as she walked by in the mess. And Ric had never been particularly big on policy, anyway. So when the damn thing flashed he found himself glancing at it, every couple of minutes or so. Stupid thing.

"You guys got anything on scopes?" said a woman's voice over comms, hint of a Eurasian accent. Natasha. It was pointless to ask about visuals. They'd pick up any emissions on sensors long before the target got into visual range, which would give them plenty of time to set up. _Unless it has a Mirage Colloid system_, he thought. Then they'd be screwed. If _it_ was even out there. He still wasn't convinced. MC had been banned by the Junius Treaty. Not that that had stopped anyone from conducting research and development on it. It only meant that the tech was always highly classified and almost never deployed. So the chances of coming up against an MC-cloaked adversary were very remote, for which he was thankful. Invisible intruders made his skin crawl. And gave him ideas.

"Nothing here," chimed in the other member of the flight, a quiet and even male voice that could only have belonged to Trey.

"Goddamn," said Ric. "Where is this guy? Or girl," he added as a concession to Tasha, who was one of the fiercest pilots he'd ever met. Far superior to most men he'd flown with. She'd have been terrifying as a Coordinator. "Honestly, if they really wanted me to shut up on the bridge, they could've just told me. Didn't need to send me on a ghost run. Didn't need to make you guys join me, either."

"Obviously Halley didn't want to deal with your stupidity," said Tasha.

"Ouch. That hurts, ya know? You hurt me, you really do, when you make comments like that. Wounds my self-esteem."

"Ric, your puffed-up ego could lift a hot air balloon."

Double ouch.

"Do you two really have to do this now?" asked Trey wearily.

"Sorry," said Tasha. She never apologized to Ric like that. And that was incredibly unfair, because she was absolutely _merciless_ to him.

The mirror flashed. He was really getting sick of it. He opened his mouth to complain about it, complaining being one of his favorite pastimes, but before he could, it flashed again. That was odd. Normally it took a minute or two before…

"Hold a sec," he said. "I might have something here." He zoomed in on the fragment, having never paid more than shallow attention to it before now. The mirror was definitely rotating faster. He hadn't seen anything act on it, no impacts or gravity or anything. The nature of the silence changed. Whereas before it had the feel of boredom and bother, now they could all suddenly feel the tension in their channel, the 'is it starting?' feeling of near panic and breathless restraint as they tried to figure out what the hell was going on.

Then something blasted past them, too fast for their eyes to track, something that left only ghostly after-images on their sensor readouts, something shaped vaguely like a mobile suit.

"Scatter!" shouted Trey, not a moment too soon, as suddenly multiple green energy beams lanced out at them and into empty space as the three pilots accelerated as fast as they could out of the way, g-force slamming them into their seats as the thrusters kicked up.

"What the hell was that?" shouted Ric. _Why didn't it show up before now?_ Whatever this stranger was up to, it seemed content to avoid their sight and take potshots at them as the three Earth Forces pilots tried frantically not to get hit and simultaneously figure out what was going on. The three of them zig-zagged as randomly as they could, throwing themselves to the mercy of the restraining straps as they searched every view for the source of the shots. No such luck. At this point, their only offensive strategy looked to be 'shoot out randomly and hope you hit something by accident,' which wasn't particularly palatable. That they hadn't taken hits yet was a miracle.

"Oh, what I wouldn't give for backup right now," complained Ric as he pulled another high-g maneuver. His chest was sore from them already.

"Wait! I got him!" called Tasha. "5 o'clock high!"

"Are you nuts?" Ric called back. "That's not where the shots are coming from!"

"Dammit Ric, I just saw him zip past up there! I'm on him!"

"Then who's shooting?"

"You're hallucinating!" Tasha pulled away from the group at full burn. Ric reluctantly covered her, but he wasn't really sure what he could do. A green bolt nearly impacted his main camera, passed just centimeters to the left, and fuzzed out the feed on that side from the heat. Definitely not a hallucination. He tried to follow Tasha on sensors, but she was moving too fast for him to get a good fix on her.

"Trey, what have you got?" called Ric.

"I've got a lot of lasers," said Trey, his voice tight with concentration. He narrowly avoided a hit. "A _lot_ of lasers."

"How is he pulling that off?" asked Ric, another bolt grazing his armor near the batteries, setting off a brief heat warning. "There was only one contact!"

"Beats me," replied Trey, blocking what would have been a fatal hit with his shield. "But we're in a whole lot of trouble if we don't think of something."

"That bastard is _fast_," called Tasha. "It's almost impossible for me to pursue. Always puts a bolt in my path, trying to catch me over-reaching. Damn!" She pulled dodged around a blast that couldn't possibly have come from her prey, but no additional contacts appeared, which suggested that _somehow_ their enemy could be in multiple places at once.

Ric rolled, then reversed at full burn to avoid consecutive shots. Bastard was anticipating his evasive patterns now? Seriously? Then he caught a flash, not the mirror this time, but the thruster wash of his enemy. "Got him!" he shouted, dropping into pursuit and attempting to line up a shot. He was now facing the same obstacles Tasha was, from different angles, but he expected them and dodged crisply getting close enough to see that the aggressor was mostly white, with a black colored torso. He didn't recognize it, and assumed it was probably a ZAFT design. He knew pretty much everything the Alliance used. Then their opponent pulled straight up, reversed thrust and blasted back down towards them in a stunt that would've caused a Natural pilot to black out, best case, or die from an aneurysm, worst case. Neither Ric nor Tasha could quite believe that anyone would be that reckless and blessed their good fortune as they lined up shots.

Then they were utterly shocked when their opponent dodged the simultaneous attacks with barely a twitch, having so fine a control over his machine that he merely used the momentum of his suit's own limbs to rotate its torso just enough so that he fit in the parallel lane between the paired bolts, a distance of only a few meters and barely enough to contain the suit itself. It was the most incredible display of finesse they'd ever seen. Between Tasha and Ric, Ric recovered from the shock slightly earlier, dropping straight down like a boulder in gravity, letting a slash from a sword they hadn't even seen drawn take only his head-mounted sensor antenna. Tasha was not so lucky and lost her primary weapon arm to the return stroke.

"Shit!" she barked, opening up with her CIWS, attempting to drive away the assailant before he could do any more damage. Ric tried to cover her with missiles, but the bastard always moved just enough to foul up the lock, sending the missile off to god-knows-where without even changing direction.

Trey had finally managed to catch up, suit charred from several near-misses and missing its left leg below the knee. He opened up too, much less impaired than Tasha, the three of them finally driving off the primary foe, but drawing volleys from whatever else was shooting at them, forcing the three to scatter once again.

Incredibly, the enemy maintained the same speed he had first arrived at through the whole fight, when he should have been bleeding from burst blood vessels and unconscious from g-forces, much less fighting with the reaction time and finesse he'd shown. The only reason Ric, Trey, and Tasha were still flying was because there were three of them and only one of him. One-on-one they stood no chance. Ric got the feeling that their opponent had only been testing them out up to this point and had just come to the same conclusion. Green bolts from all directions now passed between them, forcing them to dodge away from each other. Ric got a brief glance of the enemy with a pair of rifles, carefully placing shots to separate the three Earth Forces pilots. It didn't account for all of the beams, which didn't appear to originate from the enemy suit and came from multiple directions, but at least he could understand the strategy. Not that he could do anything about it.

Now Tasha was on her own, forced to evade unevenly because of the missing arm, and Ric and Trey were forced to move further and further away as the uncannily accurate green bolts interrupted their moves and drew them out, but never quite drawing a killshot. They were tiring, though, and it would happen eventually. But Tasha got it first. She pulled out of a looping dodge, had taken too long to set herself, and the opponent was on her, a pair of pink glowing swords dropping on her, cutting through head camera, cockpit, and left arm in an X-pattern, prematurely cutting off her last expletive. Her mobile suit cartwheeled away, venting coolant and atmosphere before exploding in a pink starburst.

Trey and Ric were beyond words now, fighting with their all, sweat beading on their foreheads from extreme concentration, intent on forcing the enemy to pay for destroying their comrade. Adrenaline enhanced Ric's senses; he could see the red and blue detailing on the enemy's suit, its golden joints flashing, the glow of its thrusters like none he had ever seen. He was at his absolute limit, the fight of his life, the most intense moments he had experienced as he dodged and wove and countered the enemy and all his strange abilities as much as he could. Even so, they were still losing, minor damage adding up, delicate systems starting to wear out from strain and use, pilots tiring, reactions slowing, aims drifting until finally they would be defeated.

It caught up to Trey: one of the lancing bolts caught his already damaged leg, destroying it completely and sending him into a spin from which he was too slow in recovering. He managed to escape out of range of a slash, but the enemy revealed linear cannons on its hips and with a slug from each removed an arm before one of the green bolts seemed to come out of nowhere and punched straight through Trey's back, silencing him as well.

Ric was alone now, hemmed in by the green beams, forced increasingly to roll and dodge in the same space until he'd be trapped and cornered. The enemy moved in ever so closer with each miss, just waiting for an opportunity to blast him with the linear cannons or finish him off with a well placed sword strike. But he couldn't take his attention off of the other blasts, which he now realized were remotely controlled weapons, and briefly marveled at the sophistication the pilot displayed with them, always keeping up the net despite their limited battery life, returning them quickly and quietly on an individual basis to avoid compromising the trap. His foe now added new wrinkles with its own rifles, eliminating Ric's ability to counter as the net drew tighter. Ric was forced to use his shield to deflect several linear cannon rounds as he dodged cannon blasts as the enemy suit kept up the volume of firepower on its own even as it recharged its remotes. Soon a cannon round carved off his shoulder armor, then another took his left hand. A remote weapon nicked his leg, severing the hydraulic control, leaving it to drag behind him as he maneuvered, and shortly after it was completely blasted off. He snarled silently, fighting to keep stable as he contorted what was left of his suit around and over beams, constantly slipping just outside the nets and forcing the enemy to recalibrate.

But it wasn't enough and he knew it. Beams began to pare more and more components off his suit. He was finished when his main camera cracked, ruining his visuals, and before backups could kick in he'd lost all of his limbs to the remotes. In frustration, he attempted to ram his foe, a poor attempt at a gesture of defiance. He got close enough to see what was written on the crest of the enemy machine's head, _Venti_, and then the monster ended the fight with a colossal cannon blast from an integrated chest cannon that it had been so reluctant to unveil. Everything went white.

Then the screens dimmed to black and started displaying his stats. He undid the restraints and yanked off his helmet, ran a gloved hand through his hair and wiped off the sweat that had accumulated on his face. He was exhausted. He looked back at the screen. He'd been in the simulator for fifteen minutes, less than five of which had been the actual fight. Kills: zero. Against one enemy. Accuracy: zero percent. One ungodly monster of an enemy that seemed to casually ignore human limits. Objective Failed, all pilots KIA. Goddamn.

He stormed out of the simulation cockpit. Trey and Tasha were waiting for him. The three of them, reunited once again, marched up to the simulator tech, intent on giving him a piece of their minds.

"What the _hell_ was that!?" Ric almost shouted at the petty officer, who simply raised an eyebrow.

"I thought the simulator was supposed to be realistic," griped Tasha.

"It is," said the tech. "That enemy was based off actual, specific combat data."

"Bullshit," snorted Ric. "That thing wasn't even human! That was an AI or something you made up, because no human has control_ that_ fine and no human has reaction time_ that_ fast. It's not possible."

"Not possible for _you_, Lieutenant Duomo," said a new voice. Ric made a face, and then turned around to see that, yes, it was Captain Halley, just arrived. "In fact, there are very few people that it _is_ possible for, but they do exist. Just because you haven't encountered them personally does not make what they can do impossible."

"Not even a Coordinator could pull those moves off, Captain," said Trey.

"For the vast majority of them, you'd be right, Lieutenant Thomas. Only a few exceptional individuals are capable of such extraordinary displays of ability. Tell me, have you heard of the Mobius Zero?"

This stumped the pilots for a moment, till Tasha remembered a rumor she heard about the Battle of Endymion. "A mobile armor, right? A pretty useless one, too. Never made it out of prototype," she said.

"Not useless. Simply highly specialized. Only a few people could use the remote wire-guided gunbarrel pods reliably. But for those who could, it was a sight to behold. In one memorable instance, a single Zero pilot shot down five GINNs. Incredibly effective in the right hands, but the problem was finding the right hands."

"That doesn't explain why the pilot wasn't splattered all over his cockpit by the g-forces he was pulling," groused Ric.

"Look at it as another case of finding the right hands. I can think of three people who could control those kinds of maneuvers, that power. Two of them are in ZAFT and the other is in Orb. Maybe there are others. But don't for a _moment_ assume it was impossible. Everything you faced in the simulator was combat-accurate. And you three actually did well against him, lasting as long as you did. I'm impressed."

"Ha ha, Captain. Very funny. Set an impossible task and laugh when I fail. Great prank. _Really_," said Ric. He was taking the fight personally because, dammit, he'd already been in combat against people physically superior to him. A whole lot of them. But he hadn't fought freaky computer monsters and considered it highly unfair to make him fight one. It was a mockery of everything he'd done.

Captain Halley narrowed his eyes. "Believe what you want, Duomo. But reality will rudely interrupt eventually." Then he spun perfectly on his heel and marched out, paragon of military discipline as ever.

Duomo seriously considered giving chase and clubbing the man with his sweaty helmet. People did not just _dismiss_ Ricardo Duomo, medal-winning fifteen-kill combat veteran, out of hand! It was humiliating! But Trey grabbed his shoulder, not hard, just a warning, and gave the slightest shake of the head to warn him off. Ric forced himself to relax and settled for making a rude hand gesture at the door the captain left through. He went on to theatrically sulk through dinner, which, to add insult to injury, was exactly the reheated scraps he was afraid it would be.

* * *

The next day, they were briefed. That, in itself, was an exciting development. It meant they would actually be going out and doing things rather than just whiling away time in the sims. Slightly less exciting was the fact that Captain Halley hadn't seen fit or found an excuse to throw Duomo off the ship yet. _I should be so lucky_, thought Natasha. But she'd been stuck with him since the last war, since he had the annoying traits of luck and skill that had kept him both alive and a pain in the ass.

She was on the observation deck now, looking out over the Atlantic Ocean, the port of Marseilles behind her, the iron-gray clouds blanketing the sky reminding her so much of the view from Heaven's Base in Iceland. That had been an unpleasant experience, learning that, only days since her squadron had been transferred to South America, practically the whole ZAFT military leveled the place. Just one of the ways they'd been lucky. The second was being still in transit to the moon, en route to Arzachel to be part of the task force there, when Durandal had seen fit to eliminate President Copeland and the Earth Alliance military base there. Another was being anywhere but Cape Town three days ago.

The enormity of the task they had been set had started to overwhelm her, so she'd come out here, escaping Ric's antics and the constant buzz of rumors about where _they_ might be, who might've done it, and so forth. All the speculation gave her a headache. She'd always liked the sea, the rhythmic sound of the waves, the occasional cry of a gull, the breath of wind and the smell of salt in the air. Maybe, if fate had diverged at some point, she would've been a sailor or a diver or a marine biologist or… who knows, instead of a pilot. Maybe when she got out of the military, whenever that was. Not soon, though. _Someone_ had wrecked Cape Town. And they of the _Odysseus_ would be hunting them down. Obviously the big brass trusted them, would give them all the support they needed, but it would still be one ship chasing people who'd already shown the firepower to wreck a whole damn military base. A big, unwieldy fleet simply wasn't flexible enough to take on the sort of enemy who can vanish like these did and the _Odysseus_ was a hell of a ship, brand new, the EA's first entirely self-developed assault carrier. But Tasha still wasn't really confident in their odds. And who knows how things would turn out if Orb or ZAFT got involved? Somehow, she didn't think they'd just sit around and do nothing. Distantly, she could see that it was possible that another war could start. Certainly no one wanted it or even would be able to fight it, but neither were they strong enough to stop one should the worst occur.

She didn't want to think about it anymore. She wasn't interested in following that particular downward spiral, so she just closed her eyes and listened to the waves wash against the hull. She lapsed into something of a meditative state, just letting the sounds of the world echo and subsuming her anxieties and frustrations in the peace and order of nature. When she was brought out of it by a manmade sound, a door opening behind her, she wasn't quite sure how long she'd been standing there, unable to tell if the sun had moved behind the clouds. She opened her eyes and turned around to see that she had been joined by Trey. He seemed as steady and even as always.

"Been out here long?" he asked, a half-smile on his face hinting that he had a pretty good idea of the answer.

"Yeah." She reached behind her and undid the cord that normally bound her long pale hair in a thick ponytail, now opting to let it loose in the cool sea breeze.

Neither of them quite knew what to say for the moment, but the silence was comfortable. Tasha wasn't particularly inclined to talk at the moment and Trey was never much of a talker himself.

Honestly, Tasha would have gone crazy, either from stress or Duomo long ago if not for Trey. Trey was a rock, calm and collected, easily one of the most rational people she knew. He was normally what kept Ric and her from each others' throats, a natural mediator. He also knew when to take a back seat and let them vent. He seemed to Tasha a combination of shrink, soldier, and statue. He was tall, with neatly trimmed dark hair and dark eyes, a sober and honest counterpart to Duomo's shorter stature, copiously styled hair, and ridiculous moods.

Trey had joined the squadron shortly after Ric had, arriving as relief right as she was about to beat the ever-loving snot out of the shorter pilot. It wasn't much of a first impression, but things had worked out, and here they were, about to deploy on what she felt would be the most dangerous assignment they'd ever been given, even if the war had ended.

He broke the silence, snapped her out of her reverie. "If I was a betting man, I'd bet you were thinking about how messed up this whole situation is."

"You should take your intuition to Vegas or Monte Carlo or one of the Lunar cities. You'd make a killing."

He chuckled. "I'm not that good. It's not that much of a leap, is all."

"I was just torturing myself with what-ifs. I oughta know better by now."

"Maybe. But to err is human."

She waved a hand out toward the ocean. "I don't know what it is, but there's something looming over all this. Makes me uneasy. Call it soldier's intuition, but these next few weeks aren't going to be pretty."

"Well, we've been through enough shit that we're probably pretty good at figuring out if there's more out there on the way. Curse of soldiers everywhere."

"Doesn't make me feel any better."

"Me either."

"I guess it was naïve to think that people would be done fighting."

"Doesn't hurt to hope. Come on. We've got duties to attend to." He stepped back, towards the door and gave her an expectant look.

She sighed. "Yeah, I'm coming," she said, and reluctantly pulled herself away from the vista, sparing a wistful glance behind her as the door hissed shut, cutting off the breeze.

* * *

The hangar deck of an active carrier is a vast, complex system and despite being the largest single space in the ship, still managed to be cramped: space is at a premium aboard a ship and a whole lot of it was currently being taken up by the sixty-foot tall mechanical giants that also happened to be Natasha's occupation. It was almost always busy as mechanics tested and repaired the suits, loaded them with ammo, painted them, and even moved between them on the gantries that were designed to fold away so the suits could make it to the catapult. It was even more hectic during combat operations, as all of these things occurred at the same time as mobile suits constantly launched and returned in varying states of damage depending on how the fight was going. Tasha was impressed and very, very glad that the crew chief managed to keep everything straight.

She had followed Trey down here from the observation deck, the hangar deck rather lower on this ship than its counterparts from Orb or ZAFT. She'd neglected to stop by earlier and do her customary maintenance checks on her Windam. Not that she thought the mechanics were incompetent, but there were some things she had to do for herself. Like the old airborne adage went, she packed her own parachute, even if only to clear up any half-formed doubts or persistent problems that might impede her effectiveness. So she took a lift down to the floor and weaved her way through mechanics and lifts and scattered parts and tools, making her way from the aft to the fore of the deck where her Windam was stored, ready and willing to be the first to launch if they ended up under attack. But it wasn't there. Her brow furrowed in confusion. She hadn't passed it on the way up… she recognized the various pilot insignias and other decorative flourishes on the suits and none of them were hers. She hadn't really been paying attention but looking back now she only saw three Windams. Ric's and Trey's were missing too. Was it really taking so long to load them? They'd been on the ship since yesterday and if some paper pusher mucked up the transfer paperwork then she'd hunt the fool down and chuck him out a window. She was really rather fond of that damned suit. It had carried her through several missions and served her admirably. And if some _idiot_ lost it in the bueracracy…

Tasha turned around to shout and see if anyone knew where her suit was or when it'd be arriving, if she could even be heard over the natural din of the hangar deck. She got as far as opening her mouth and inhaling when she noticed the captain approaching her, Ric and Trey having fallen in behind him. She shut her mouth and drew herself up in a proper salute, which Halley returned.

"You look like you have a question, Ensign Vela," he said in greeting.

"Yes, sir. If I may ask, where is my mobile suit? I figured it would be aboard by now and I was intending to perform my maintenance checks, sir."

"Right to the point, eh?" said the Captain. "And I assume you two are following me because you'd like to know as well?" He continued when the other two pilots answered in the affirmative. "I wasn't able to tell you earlier, during the briefing, since we only just got confirmation, but as of today, you three will no longer be piloting Windams."

"What!?" shouted Ric, outraged, unable to restrain himself anymore.

Captain Halley ignored him. "Instead, you'll be piloting _those_," he said, pointing as the catapult doors began to open. "Let it be known that the Alliance does not keep all its eggs in one basket."

The three pilots turned to look at the new arrivals, being ferried aboard by cargo lifters.

"Meet the GAT-X111 Blood Dagger, the combat prototype for the Windam's successor," said Halley. "These are our first mobile suits to take into account the advances we engineered off of the Chaos, Gaia, and Abyss. They'll outperform a Windam any day of the week." He sounded almost proud. The pilots were transfixed, taking in every detail of their bounty.

The new mobile suits were similar in torso structure to the Gaia (though lacking the bladed 'wings') and incorporated a chest cannon similar to the one found on the Abyss, while maintaining the leg-mounted vernier thrusters of the Windam. Their shoulders were of a different design than their predecessors, less rounded and extending out over the arm, containing thrusters that would give them the mobility of the Chaos. This was rounded out by a unique head shape, which had shorter antennas than the Windam, laid out in a V bracketing the main camera, reminiscent of the old Duel except for the faceplate, which was practically identical to the one on the Windam. Its targeting and sensor "eyes" were behind a crimson visor. They were almost entirely grey in spite of this, indicating that they were equipped with phase shift armor. Cannons were visible on the back that, when activated, would deploy over the shoulders, basically smaller and more efficient integrated versions of the Dopplehorn Striker pack. Mounted on the head were the ubiquitous CIWS guns while handheld beam sabers (stored on the hips) and rifles were brought aboard in separate crates. Each unit carried a shield with integrated beam cannon as well. They were magnificent.

Trey nudged Tasha. "Feel better about our odds now?" he muttered. "Cause I do."


	5. Phase 04: From the Precipice

JULY 27, CE 74

Two warships entering Copernicus City at different times raised little attention, due to its distinctly neutral existence, even moreso than Orb since the place was something of a hybrid between a terrestrial city and a PLANT. To this the city owed its reputation as a thriving hub of commerce as well as for privacy. Beloved by the rich for its Cayman-esque banking laws and by corporations for its low taxes, many Natural and Coordinator run businesses had local offices. Discretion was the byword, making it a popular place for discreet meetings between lovers, lawyers, and aspiring crime lords.

And it was an excellent place to conduct negotiations you didn't want to be mentioned in the media, and where warships would not be thought strange, since the Alliance had once had several military bases on the surface and the PLANTs were practically next door neighbors.

The negotiating parties would be composed of each ship's command crew and Terminal members, which overlapped significantly. For the _Archangel_, this would be Captain Ramius, Captain La Flaga, Lieutenant Commander Haww, Admiral Zala, and Representative Athha. For the _Diana_ this meant Captain Joule, Deputy Captain Elsman, Commander Yamato, Squadron Commander Hahnenfuss, the Asuka team, General Waltfeld, and Chairwoman Clyne. This meant that Shiho would be the only one at the table not part of the organization, and the amount of consternation that caused her was precisely zero.

"Yzak, if you had told me about it, I _would've_ joined during the war. Don't you trust me?" she had pointed out when the Captain had broached the question. Then she raised a sardonic eyebrow as he stammered out something between an apology and a denial, before just cutting the conversation off there. The whole exchange entertained Dearka immensely and it gave him an opportunity to consider someone else's relationship problems rather than his own.

Shortly after the call with the _Archangel _had ended he'd rounded on Lacus. Well, first he'd put his head in his hands and muttered "You have got to be kidding me." Then he'd spun around to glare at the Chairwoman, who was still Lacus to him, political power be damned.

"Did you know about this?" he'd accused.

At this Lacus had adopted a concerned expression and replied "Know about what?"

He'd sighed and turned away, unable to tell if she was lying or not. He wouldn't have put it past her, though. In his experience, girls stuck together and now an angry Miriallia had his boss on her side. Or if she didn't, she would soon. If this wasn't a crisis, he would've ditched the meeting just to avoid dealing with it altogether.

It was true, they hadn't seen each other in two years, and the fallout from their last encounter was still highly radioactive. They'd given it an honest-to-god shot. He'd really tried to make the relationship work, a serious effort, something he'd never quite done before in a relationship. He'd had a few flings in the academy and on leave but nothing that could ever have been expected to mature. She, in contrast, had just lost Tolle, a raw and festering wound that still, to his knowledge, had not been patched up. He'd heard that she was a freelance photographer, traveling all over. He'd come in the time since their break-up to know several people who'd lost loved ones in the war. They had a hard time building meaningful relationships after the loss, sometimes afraid of sullying the memory of the dead loved one, or afraid of being hurt again. And he'd bet she had a similar reason for avoiding people now, spending a lot of time on the road and never really putting down roots. He knew her well enough to hazard a guess, anyway.

And _that_ was an issue, too. He knew Mir well. And he knew that she knew him just as well. They had said as much in their last exchange before she walked out on him. It was a scary thing, to be known, to have someone who knows you well enough to hurt you in ways no else quite can. But it was also intoxicating, that familiarity, and he missed it in a way that felt almost like withdrawal. It doesn't just go away. He'd see things that would make her laugh or get upset at and every time there'd be a twinge of heartache. He remembered what she liked and what she hated, her greatest triumphs and her worst fears. After losing that, it made building a relationship with someone else an exercise in tedium. He'd tried, a few dates here and there, but could never quite get to that depth of feeling that made his time with Mir special. She was almost certainly feeling the same pangs. It would make working with the _Archangel_ awkward.

The PLANT negotiators were stretched out in an auto-limousine, en route to the resort retreat where the meeting would actually take place. Kira and Lacus were very close together, holding hands and whispering to each other. Waltfeld cast an amused one eye over them, just in case anything dangerous decided to rear its head. Yzak, Shiho, Luna, and Shinn were swapping stories and tactics, as soldiers were wont to do. Dearka alone lounged in sullen silence, remembering the last time he'd spoken to Miriallia, and wondering if this time would be any better. Not likely.

They had been together about six months, give or take a week or so. They'd returned to Orb with the _Archangel_ and Dearka was ready to go back home, to the PLANTs. And he wanted Mir to go with him. But by that time the PLANT Council and ZAFT Command had been rebuilt and had finished putting the post-war world into some sort of order. It hadn't registered for him yet, but that would mean he'd be called in for deserting and joining the Three Ships Alliance. It had for Mir.

She had moved in with her parents while she tried to readjust to civilian life and tried to figure out what to do with herself. As a result, she ended up spending a lot of time at the apartment that Dearka had been loaned by the Orb government. He'd been happy enough there, and in Orb, living in the sort of optimistic unreality that always follows times of crisis. He hadn't really worried about the future, content in the day-to-day peacetime existence that he'd longed for during the war but was now beginning to take for granted. He'd started to feel rather aimless, in a sort of limbo, without orders or an enemy now. So he decided to broach the idea of returning to the PLANTs to Mir, ready, or so he thought, to start the next stage of his life. The whole conversation took place in the main living area of the little apartment, and afterwards he'd found himself spending as little time as possible there before he left entirely.

He started out by simply laying out his case: the aimlessness, the uncertainty, the whole next-stage concept and she'd sat there on the cheap couch and listened attentively, occasionally making small murmurs of assent. A few seconds of silence passed before she asked her question: "Do you really think it's going to be like that?"

It had caught him off guard. He hadn't really expected her to question the very foundation of what he was saying.

"Like what?" he'd asked, not quite comprehending what she meant.

"Do you really think it will be that simple? That you'll go back and everything will be normal again? Like you never left?"

He hadn't really known how to reply to that and could only muster a drawn out "uh" in response.

"Do you think they'll just say 'Oh welcome back Dearka, we'll just forget the oath you broke and all the shots you fired at us, because you just want to be _normal_ again?'" Her voice was rising in pitch, her cheeks reddening with emotion. This was not going like he'd thought.

"Well, no," he'd said, "But I have to make the effort. I'm not going to run away from this."

She'd chuckled bitterly at that. "Haven't you already, though? Staying here, with all these people you once fought against, they'll accept that? Getting involved with the enemy? And if I go back with you, setting aside what _I_ have to lose in that sort of change, how would _that_ look? Face it, there is _no_ going back anymore! There's just the here and now! Stop pretending like everything's going to be all right!"

He could see the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes, hear the quaver in her voice as she challenged him, as she had so often done when he was a prisoner in the _Archangel_'s brig. But he wasn't that person now. He'd been away from home for too long, away from whatever family he might have left after all the battles. He was feeling more and more like an expatriate, more and more disconnected from the civilian life he was living. The war was over and he wasn't willing to fight these kinds of moral battles anymore. He wouldn't take those challenges now. In hindsight, he hadn't been thinking. He'd been reacting, convinced he was right.

"Who says I'm pretending!?" he'd retorted, his own voice rising now to match hers.

"Dearka, listen! You go back and they'll court martial you! That's the only way this ends!"

"Maybe so! But I was born in the PLANTs, my family is in the PLANTs, my home is in the PLANTs!"

Mir flinched at that last part. She took a deep shuddering breath before replying. "What about us, Kira and Cagalli and Athrun and _me_? Where do we fit in up there? After everything we've been through, you're going to leave them too?"

"They've made their choices! Now I have to make mine."

There was a pregnant pause. Both of them retreated from the conversation, sitting in silence. Without thinking they averted their eyes from each other, suddenly uncomfortable in each other's presence despite all the time they had spent together.

Then Mir said in a small voice: "I don't want to be alone again." It seemed to just slip out, like she had been thinking it and accidentally spoke out loud.

"Then come with me!" he said, stretching out a hand. "We can start over in the PLANTs. We can make it work, I promise!"

She shook her head hard enough to dislodge a single tear from her lashes. He watched as it traced its way down the curve of her cheek, glittering. He despised it in that moment. "If you can't abandon your home, I can't abandon mine. I'm not leaving the friends and family I have left."

He dropped his hand back to his side. There wasn't any point holding out anymore. But she had exposed a chink in her emotional armor. "That's not your only reason, is it," he said flatly.

"No, I guess not," she admitted quietly.

He let out a long sigh. "Figures. You're still not over Tolle," he said, almost to himself. Her eyes flashed angrily at that but he didn't notice and continued with his train of thought. ""I bet you don't want to be in that position again, knowing something bad is going to happen or has happened to someone you love, and there you are," he turned to stare directly into her eyes, confronting, accusing, "unable to do anything to help other than _watch_."

She broke then, rose off the couch, tears now flowing freely, trying frantically to find the words to just shut him up, but they wouldn't come. Dearka pressed on. "So if you're not over him, _what are you doing here?_ _Why even try!? WHY BOTHER LEADING ME ON WHEN YOU KNEW, DON'T DENY IT, THAT WE'D GET TO THIS POINT!?_" He'd risen from his seat now, too, voice raspy with anger as he worked through all the implications of what he'd just realized.

"_BECAUSE I THOUGHT YOU CARED!"_ she shouted right back into his face, breaking all his momentum. When she continued, her voice was very small. "Because I thought maybe this would help me move on." She raised her head, looking the tall blond Coordinator square in the eye. There were no more tears in her eyes, only the streaks that showed where they had been. "I guess I was wrong," she said in a dead voice that scared Dearka a little. He'd heard it before, from the survivors of particularly brutal battles. Kira had had it at one point in time. So had Athrun. He'd heard it plenty from ZAFT soldiers and pilots that had rotated back from the front lines. But he'd never heard it from Mir before, not even after everything she'd been through, JOSH-A, the Battle of Orb, Jachin Due, to name the major engagements. But he'd done this. He'd broken her. He was suddenly ashamed and sat down, put his head in his hands.

It had been so easy to think of her as a soldier. And she was, on the surface. He'd forgotten that, underneath, she was still the civilian girl from Heliopolis, without the benefits of training, examples, _procedure_ he had to fall back on when things were hard. He'd taken a damaged, vulnerable girl and treated her like a soldier and in doing so smashed her to pieces.

They didn't exchange another word. She went into the other room. After about an hour she returned, having packed a bag of everything she had in the apartment. She left without a backward glance.

* * *

The conference room was a large, rectangular, airy space. The North and East walls were composed entirely of plate glass, which could be tinted with a control located at the head of the rectangular conference table that took up most of the middle of the room. It was heavy and like the rest of the room minimally decorated. It let its weight, discreet electronics, and expensive materials show its quality rather than gaudy decoration. Twenty five chairs of similar make were arranged around it, though they would really only be using just over half of them.

The PLANT delegation arrived first. Kira had an uneasy feeling upon entering the room, but couldn't justify the feeling in any way and dismissed it as paranoia. Yzak produced from within his uniform jacket a bug sniffer, quickly swept the room and declared it clean from any surveillance devices. Waltfeld set up a small signal jammer just in case as the others sat down on the other side of the table from the window, Lacus and Kira first, followed by Yzak, Shiho, Shinn, Luna, and Dearka, who was attempting to stay out of the limelight, with Waltfeld taking a seat at the end of the line while they waited for the Orbites. Everyone stood to greet their friends and comrades when they arrived a few minutes later. The women traded kisses on the cheek with each other and shook hands with the men, while the men were a bit more boisterous with the handshakes, often clapping each other on the shoulder or entering brief, one-armed embraces. Shinn was noticeably slow to rise and stilted but kept the peace. Dearka, too, was less than his usual amiable self, though that was mostly due to his and Miriallia's refusal to acknowledge each other's existence beyond mere formality. Kira would have liked to have been more open with his friends, who he hadn't seen in six months, but sensed that this wasn't a particularly friendly moment. If they were lucky, there might be time later to catch up on personal matters, but this meeting would be strictly professional. The Orb delegation took seats on the other side of the table, backs to the plate glass windows. No one sat at the head of the table; this was a meeting between equals.

"Well, it's not quite the bridge of the _Archangel_, but some political formalities have to be observed, I guess," said Cagalli, leaning back into her chair. "It'll do."

"Just because you did all your planning there doesn't make it the best place to do that sort of thing," cracked Andrew. "These seats, for one, are much more comfortable." Murrue humored him with an exaggerated roll of her eyes.

"Anyway," said Lacus, "we're not any closer to determining the source of the info leak, though we have managed to confirm through other sources that Cape Town definitely was wiped out and the Alliance command is in a state of panic."

"Yes," said Athrun. "There's definitely a threat out there. But we don't have any specs for the mobile suits or any data on the organization that pulled the theft. There's a list of likely suspects but we don't really know anything. But I doubt we can afford to just wait and see what happens."

"My thoughts exactly. As such, the PLANT Supreme Council is prepared to offer the services of the _Diana_ and the pilots and machines aboard it for cooperation with Orb forces as a quick reaction force in case of terrorist attack," continued Lacus.

Miriallia asked an incisive question: "How official is this commitment? I doubt the Earth Alliance would be particularly happy with our two nations working together to combat what they probably see as an internal problem, even considering the obvious friendship between us."

"I don't think it would be wise to advertise that we're working together," ventured Waltfeld. "It'd probably be better to keep it on the downlow. To the public, we'd just have similar objectives and be operating in overlapping sectors. It's plausible and would allow us plenty of flexibility when it comes to pursuing targets. And we'd still be free to work as closely together as we always have. We'd still be coordinated and be fighting side-by-side. Our orders would be the same. They'd just come in separate envelopes."

"In any event," said Mu, "The Orb government is willing to commit the _Archangel_ and its pilots and machines to this… joint venture? Endeavor? Strike force?" He looked around for help.

"Cooperative exercise?" suggested Murrue gently.

"That's good. Let's go with that."

Shinn appeared to be piecing something together in his head. He hadn't really paid the tall, scarred blond much attention earlier, had been more focused on the Chief Representative and Athrun, the people he knew. But something was bugging him. Something about the blond one's voice… He didn't recognize the name Mu La Flaga, but he could swear he'd met the man before. Shinn's red eyes alit on the prominent scar on the Captain's cheek. The man's hair was a familiar golden blond color. He wasn't particularly familiar with Natural hair color variations but of all the Naturals he'd met, only one had had a hair color like that. But he'd been shot down at Berlin, hadn't he? _The _Archangel_ was at Berlin, too,_ his thoughts reminded him. What if… Shinn manipulated his mental image of the man, lengthening the hair down past the shoulders, and composited a facial mask to cover the scar…

He inhaled sharply, a sudden gasp of surprise, his red eyes widening in shock. Luna gave him a curious look but did not interrupt the current conversation. Kira noticed a change in the tension in the air, diverting his glance to Shinn in time to see the emotion behind his eyes shift from astonishment to anger. Mu apparently felt the same thing. He too, turned to look at Shinn and was met with a fierce glare. Luna grabbed Shinn's arm as he started to rise and gave him another look, one that said _Later_. Kira knew that would be a mess, and soon. His feeling of uneasiness jumped up a couple of notches.

Dearka and Miriallia seemed to be doing their damnedest to avoid looking at each other. Every so often one would stare at the other just a bit too long and would have to hurriedly avert their gaze lest the other would catch them looking. They played this cat and mouse game several times. Once they accidentally made eye contact, lingering for an awkward second before mutually averting their eyes. Yzak was gleefully taking the whole thing in through his peripheral vision. It was excellent ammunition to get back at Dearka with.

"While I think we're making a wise decision here," said Yzak, diverting only a minimal level of his attention to minding the spectacle of Dearka and Mir, "I think our first priority is to figure out exactly who or what actually attacked Cape Town. I don't like all these unknowns, and I don't want to be fighting from the back foot all the time. I want to be able to strike first, if necessary."

"It goes without saying that this is the number one priority for all PLANT intelligence services," said Lacus. She looked expectantly at Cagalli.

"Same here," said the Representative. "I've also got Kisaka running down a lead. I'm expecting to hear back from him within twenty-four hours."

Yzak grunted, apparently satisfied, and leaned back. Next to him, Shiho was quietly observing the others at the table, so far seeming unperturbed at the political power concentrated in the room. Even Luna had more experience than her at the upper echelons of government, but she betrayed not a hint of uncertainty. It mirrored what Kira had seen when she flew her GOUF: steely determination and calculated precision. She hadn't said a word yet, but Kira had no doubt that when she did speak whatever she said would be disciplined and well-thought out.

The conversation now turned to logistical details and political considerations. Kira tuned it out. It wasn't particularly important to him. The freedom the _Archangel_ had had in the last war was a luxury, one they had grown used to and taken for granted. Now they were accountable to the chain of command, and while he was sure that Lacus and Cagalli would just as soon abandon it and go hunting for the rouges, it would be a bad precedent to set, the leading peace activists suspending oversight and going cowboy. So while he didn't enjoy it, he could at least appreciate the necessity of the topic. That didn't mean he had to pay attention, though.

Boredom wasn't the only reason his attention was wandering. He'd been unable to put aside the niggling feelings of unease he'd had since entering the room. It wasn't a pain, a headache. It was more of a persistent prickle at the back of his neck, the sense that something was coming. Every other minute or so he scanned the horizon for threats, not unlike when he was in the pilot's chair. But no matter how often he did so he was unable to shake the lingering paranoia. And paranoia it would remain unless something happened. It clung to him like wet cloth, shrouding his mind, coming at him almost like instinct. Why? What was setting him off? He knew, trusted, everyone here, was among friends. So why was he so concerned? Mu fidgeted in his seat, also showing signs of discomfort, though whether that was due to the same phenomenon that was setting Kira off or from the death glare Shinn was shooting his way was unknown. Every minute the feeling was becoming a little clearer, a little sharper. It was the sort of twitchy feeling he felt before an ambush, a sense honed through countless combat engagements, from every time the Le Creuset team jumped them in the first war, Operation Angel Down, Berlin, the attack on Lacus… He found himself drawn to his memory of the latter event. He wasn't sure why, but he knew his strange feeling wasn't focused on himself, it was focused on _her_.

Once his conscious thought processes reached that point, an alarm suddenly exploded into life behind his eyes, all his senses screaming _DANGER!_ His reflexes took over, his body moving almost of its own accord as he suddenly leapt from his chair. Unbidden, his mouth voiced a shout: "Lacus!" as he dived and tackled her to the floor, as one of the windows shattered from an impact and a bullet buried itself into the headrest of her chair, whipping casually through errant strands of pink hair, narrowly missing her temple. "Cover!" shouted Athrun, and he went into bodyguard mode, shielding Cagalli's body with his own, hustling her around the table as everyone scattered and Shinn, Dearka, and Andrew overturned the heavy table. Everyone scrambled to get behind it.

Yzak's finger was to his discreet earpiece, immediately barking orders to the _Diana_'s CIC. "Meyrin, get the Harve team in the air, _now!_ We're pinned down by a sniper! Kit them out for a recon job and make sure they keep their safeties on! I'll vector them in, we want the bastard alive!" He dropped his hand, and made a quick scan over everyone, searching for visual injuries and finding none. "Everyone okay?" he asked.

"Nothing worse than a bruise," confirmed Shiho as she passed him a compact laser designator, withdrawn from her boot.

Yzak jumped back on the comm. "All HVTs are confirmed secure, no injuries." He propped the designator on the arm of one of the chairs and set it shining through the broken window. "Target is lit up. Send them and get someone to check the roads for IEDs."

"Aye, captain. Back-up is on the way." Meyrin shifted to the Harve team's channel. "Harve team, we have received the _go_ order. Kit yourselves out for ground recon. Command team is pinned down. Your objective is to flush the rat and make sure he doesn't get away. Target area designated. Open fire only as a last resort."

"Understood, ma'am," replied the squadron leader. "Harve Team is ready to go."

"Very well, Harve Lead, you are clear to launch."

"Harve team headed out." Four ZAKUs and a GOUF left the _Diana_, thrusters at full burn. Their passage drew gawkers on the streets below and caused the windows on the buildings they passed to rattle.

"Captain, I'm getting queries from the local authorities. What should I tell them?" asked Meyrin.

"Tell them the truth but don't specify our identities. Just say 'ZAFT dignitaries' and leave it at that. See if you can't get them to set up some roadblocks, in case the shooter eludes the mobile suits."

"Aye, sir."

A huge gust of wind entered the conference room through the broken window as the Harve Team passed over them, the high-pitched scream of their thrusters disturbing the broken glass on the floor and forcing the occupants of the room to cover their ears. Yzak noted, to his amusement, that somehow Dearka and Miriallia had ended up next to each other, conveniently ignoring the fact that he was close enough to Shiho that she could feel the body heat he was giving off. Everyone, except Kira and Lacus, was prepped to bolt when the call came and Yzak thanked fortune that they all had at least some military training. Kira and Lacus had yet to let go of each other. Lacus, though she tried not to show it, seemed a little rattled.

"Kira… how?" she gasped as she tried to get her breathing under control.

"I'm not sure," he admitted. "Reflex took over. But that was too close."

"Did you slip into a berserker trance?"

"No. Definitely not."

"Well." Lacus became cognizant of the curious stares from the rest of the group. She let go of Kira's arms and brushed imagined dust off her dress. "Thank you. I'm ready to move now."

"Yzak, have they checked the road?" asked Athrun.

Yzak checked in with the _Diana_. "They're checking it now. Harve has nothing on scopes and hasn't seen anything. I think we're clear."

Athrun closed his eyes and exhaled heavily through his nose. "Good. All the same, we shouldn't hang around here."

"All right," said Waltfeld. "Two by two. We're not taking any risks. Go on my mark."

* * *

"What happened, Harve?" asked Yzak. They had all escaped the resort without further incident and were now awaiting the MS team's commander's report in the briefing room aboard the _Diana_.

"I don't know, sir." The ZAFT pilot was still clad in his green and dark grey flight suit, helmet tucked under his arm, giving the party an excellent view of his well-maintained mustache. "We didn't see anything out there. Searched three square miles, scopes and visual. Our sensors were good enough to catalogue every imported squirrel and sparrow, sir, but whoever was out there was already gone or had some sort of camouflage that can beat the latest systems from IDB, sir."

Yzak sighed. Shiho took over for him. "You did what you could, Harve. You and your team go grab a meal. That'll be all for now."

Harve drew up in the ZAFT salute. "Aye, ma'am. And Miss Hawke, I heard about what happened in line. The man was one of my pilots and I apologize for his improper conduct. Rest assured he has been strongly reprimanded. It won't happen again."

"Oh. Thank you," said Lunamaria, who'd put the incident entirely out of mind. "I appreciate it."

"Only doing my duty, ma'am." He dropped his salute and left for the changing room.

Once the door closed the conversation returned to the sniper. "Whoever he was, he was certainly a professional," said Athrun. "It's not easy to slip past a police net, not to mention a mobile suit actively out to get you."

"I figured professionals would use bombs. As long as no one sees you plant it, you can be long gone when it goes off," said Shinn.

"Exactly," replied Dearka. "Which makes me think this was a rush job and the assassin didn't have time to prepare a bomb or infiltrate the resort to plant it. So he went the quick route with a sniper rifle. Visual confirmation of the kill wouldn't hurt either."

"So what happens now?" asked Kira, still sitting protectively close to Lacus.

"If this was connected to the thefts and we track down the sniper, we might be able to get a lead on the stolen mobile suits. But there's no guarantee they're connected," pointed out Shiho.

"It's worth a shot, anyway," said Cagalli. "Either way we find some dangerous people."

"That's intelligence work," said Yzak. "What do _we_ do?"

"I will get in touch with the council," said Lacus, "and present the offer. I doubt they'd turn down help. I will also see what I can get from R&amp;D. Otherwise, I think we have to play the waiting game and see what turns up in the search."

Yzak made a grumble of discontent but was otherwise silent.

"As for us," said Murrue, "we should be getting back to the _Archangel_. We have our own preparations to make. I think we've outstayed our welcome in Copernicus."

* * *

There were a few public telephones in Copernicus, leftovers from before the wireless networks were constructed. They generally went unused. However, across the walkway from one of the larger malls in the city, a nondescript man in a baseball cap and dark sunglasses entered the booth. He was tall and well built, clad in a worn jacket with many pockets and faded blue jeans, carefully chosen to be unremarkable. A small scar peeked out from the neck of his jacket. He fed a few coins into the machine and looked over his shoulder before lifting the handset.

"Speak," said the voice on the end of the line.

"The job didn't go as planned," said the man in a voice as worn as the rest of him. It was low, from nature, and raspy, from years of smoking. "The white coat next to her intervened. I didn't get another chance."

"Hmm…" said the voice. "That is uncharacteristic of you."

"It wasn't my fault." The man did not protest, only stated a fact.

"I know. I was merely remarking on your misfortune. Not making a judgment. It's not your fault. Mine, perhaps, for pushing too fast and not preparing early enough, but not yours, that is for certain."

"And the payment?"

"The job was not completed. Keep the front half as a retainer. I might have to use you again."

"Fair enough."

"Stay available."

"Of course."

The voice ended the call. Conversation over, the man left the booth and blended into the crowd in the mall, casually walking past the two police officers stationed outside.

* * *

**Sorry about the wait on this one! I've got a long list of excuses that I won't bore you with, but rest assured they were substantial. However, I am pleased to announce that I am back on something approximating a regular schedule and that we are out of the prelude and ready to get into the action. I've got a lot of ideas about where to take this story that have got me excited, and I hope you, dear reader, are too.**

**Additionally, reviews are great. Leave a review, help me get better at entertaining you.**


	6. Phase 05: The First Drops of Blood

JULY 28, CE 75

Kira wasn't quite sure what drew him to the viewing deck so early in the morning. It was never a particularly well-trafficked place on a ship crewed by those who'd spent most of their lives in space. It would be a different story, perhaps, if they ended up on Earth, but that didn't particularly concern him at the moment. No, his concern was an abiding insomnia. Despite the rational part of his mind screaming at him to _rest_, that it was 3:30 in the morning and he'd hate himself when it came time for his duty shift, some other part of him prevented no more than fifteen minutes of fruitless tossing and turning. He'd been wandering the ship for a while now, mostly sticking to quiet areas and corridors, avoiding the crew quarters and rec areas where there still might be off-shift crew members awake. Needless to say he also avoided the active areas of the ship, figuring his presence would only get in the way of whatever business was being conducted there. So he'd ended up, by accident, on the viewing deck, perhaps hoping that its tranquility might help him figure out whatever was bothering him. But he was surprised to find someone in the room, since the only people awake at this hour would be at their stations, not spending time looking out at a view that was not drastically different than that of home.

It was Lacus, no longer in her artistically fashionable dress she had worn to the meeting but was instead clad only in a simple black knee-length dress with long pink sleeves, matte grey leggings and sandals. Her hair was unbound, unadorned, and unkempt, like she had been running her hands through it nervously. She seemed in a meditative mood and was startled by Kira's arrival, taking a sharp breath before turning to face him. Upon seeing him, her expression softened and she returned to stargazing as he moved to join her at the window.

"Kira," she said, then sighed, as if she was trying to work up the nerve to reprimand him but gave up halfway through. "What are you still doing up? You really ought to be getting some rest." That was Lacus, more concerned for others than for herself, almost to a fault. It was one of the many things she and Kira shared.

"I tried," he said in reply. "It wasn't working for me." He decided to change the subject. "How did the council meeting go?"

She gave an exasperated shrug. "Same old story. They weren't exactly happy to trust another nation, but after some cajoling on my part they got over it. They'll support us as long as we get results, I suppose."

"You sound bitter."

"I know. I'm just tired. Perhaps I was overly optimistic when I agreed to take the job, but I really thought we'd have made more progress towards a stable peace than _this_. All this political back-and-forth is just… _wearing_ on me."

"I know the feeling." He put a comforting arm around her waist. She responded by leaning her head against his shoulder, relaxing her shoulders. He knew Lacus seldom had the opportunity to unburden herself like this. In many ways, she was under more pressure than he was, being held accountable for and by each and every PLANT civilian. So, in situations like this, he did what he could to ease her burden. It wasn't really a substitute for a real relationship, but they had chosen this. Sometimes he missed the relatively-carefree days they had spent together between the wars and regretted their passing. But they both had an unwavering devotion to duty that precluded that sort of thing. Maybe they'd get a happy-ever-after sometime in the future, and for now that would have to be enough. They both closed their eyes, no longer bothering to take in the starscape, taking solace in each other's company.

Neither was quite sure how long they stayed like that. As the _Diana_ was in a geostationary orbit around the moon and the artificial environment of the ship did not change, it might have been hours. The viewing deck might have been its own little world, where the troubles of outside would not intrude. But it couldn't last. Kira eventually, reluctantly broke the comfortable silence.

"Are you alright?" he asked quietly, not bothering to elaborate since there was really only one thing he would be talking about.

It took her a long time to answer. "To be honest? No. I'm not." She seemed to have surprised herself with the admission. "I mean, I figured something like this would happen eventually, either some crazy fan in a crowd or a terror scare during a speech or… or… something. I don't know. I mean, I thought I could handle it, especially after Durandal's hit squad came after me that night… but I'm not handling it. Not really. I can't sleep, just thinking how close it was, _this close_…" Her voice was strained, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. "My hands are shaking…" She clung to Kira a little tighter. "I hate it. Knowing that there's nothing I could have done to protect myself if you hadn't been there… it's the worst feeling in the world, to feel so helpless." She felt a little better after getting that out and wiped her eyes. Kira folded her into a full embrace.

"It scared the hell out of me," he said. "If I hadn't managed to push you away in time, I don't know what I would have done with myself. I don't even know how I managed it. I'm not sure, but I think that scares me more. I don't want to rely on luck and hunches when it comes to your safety."

"You really don't know how you pulled it off?"

"I just… knew something bad was going to happen. I can't explain it."

She shushed him with a finger to his lips. "Then don't, and be thankful."

He pushed her hand away and kissed her. "I am, believe me," he said, then paused a moment. "Despite everything, I'm glad we're here right now. I missed you."

"I missed you too," she said, and kissed him back.

* * *

Cagalli was too restless to sleep. Her mind was running at a million miles an hour, trying to bludgeon the few facts they had into some sort of sensible theory. Athrun surmised this by watching her pace endlessly around the _Archangel_'s officer's lounge, muttering to herself. If she wanted to talk, she'd talk. But it seemed she hadn't quite reached that stage yet. They'd been here for the better part of three hours and Cagalli seemed keen to take every opportunity she could to avoid rest. She truly had a remarkable drive, one of the things he admired about her. But at the moment it was starting to drive him up the wall.

He leaned back in his chair. "Solve it yet?" he asked lazily, knowing the question would irritate her but also that it would bring her back to reality. It worked like a charm.

"Does it look like I solved it?" she asked, giving him a moderate intensity glare. The full-intensity glares were reserved for when she was truly angry or staring down an obstinate member of parliament. But now her rhythm had been broken and she realized how long she'd been carrying on.

"I'm sorry," she said, dropping into a seat and letting out a heavy sigh. "We just don't have enough to go on."

"Counterterror operations tend to last a long time. It's natural to feel frustrated, though a day is probably pushing it," he said, raising a sly eyebrow.

She snorted. "How long do they usually take, then?"

"Depends on the size of the network and how well buried they are, but anywhere from a few months to the better part of a decade."

"I hate waiting around for something to happen."

"Don't we all."

Cagalli distracted herself making coffee. She hadn't had much of a taste for it before ending up on the _Archangel_ during the Second Bloody Valentine, when she'd received a few lessons from the master of the art, Andrew Waltfeld. Athrun watched as she worked, appreciating the practiced ease with which she used the grinder and the press. Clearly, she would not be satisfied with the swill they brewed down in the kitchens.

She returned to the table with two steaming cups, setting one down before him and then taking a seat on the opposite side of the table. Athrun mutely nodded his thanks and sipped at it slowly. No sense draining it and then having nothing to do with his hands.

"It's hard to believe we're doing this again," she said after a while.

"Doing what?"

"All of _this_," she said, gesturing all around her. "Preparing for a fight where we have no idea of the outcome, muddling our way through the politics of it all… it's not even been a year since the last war ended. And here we are, gearing up to fight again."

"It might not come to a fight. If gearing up is enough to discourage a threat, I'd gladly do it."

"I know, but all the same I feel bad asking you and Kira and the others to risk your lives again. You've fought enough battles."

Athrun looked down into the dark, reflective surface of his coffee. There was a phantom twinge of pain from his shoulder, remembering old wounds. "We're some of the best pilots out there. It comes in the job description."

"Look, you don't –" began Cagalli, but Athrun put his hand up to interrupt her.

"I've – we've – got the ability. So why not put it to good use?"

She smiled. "I know where I've heard that before."

"And he's right. We're the best people for the job and that's that."

"Then we'd better go on a damn good vacation once this is over."

"I will take you on an _excellent_ vacation. Maybe skiing. In the Alps."

Cagalli stood up, coffee finished. She held a finger in the air, as if swearing an oath. "I'm going to take great pleasure holding you to that."

"Of course you will. You're the best person I know at holding grudges."

She flashed a frown at him before clearing up the cups and saucers. "Careful, now, smart-ass. I am technically your boss and can have you thrown in the brig for insubordination."

Athrun held up his hands in mock surrender.

* * *

"Primary target located. It's right where they said it would be." The sensor officer's voice was young and a little reedy. A fresh recruit.

"Good. How far out?" The way the captain slouched in his seat reminded his subordinates of a Roman emperor. The resemblance was aided by patrician grey hair and an imperious command style.

"119 kilometers, sir. Right on the edge of detection."

"Can we get any closer without being detected?"

"There's no debris to screen our approach, sir. Any engine output enough to get us moving would be enough to get us spotted."

"What about the catapults?"

"The catapults, sir?

"Can we use those without triggering anything?"

"Uh… yes, sir, but any mobile suit we'd launch would be unable to use its engines lest it be detected."

"Good enough." The captain turned to his combat operator. "Send out the black teams. Restrict them to inertial flight until they have a clean shot."

"Aye, captain."

The twin hangar bay doors below them opened, disgorging the first two of many gunmetal green and matte black Windams. Soon enough two dozen mobile suits had been launched, aligned in two parallel rows. The rear four machines carried heavy artillery: beam bazookas. Six machines, scattered throughout the formation, had white trim where the standard had teal pieces: the cockpit hatch, thrust nozzles, chest vents, as well as the trim piece on the shoulder pauldrons.

The lead pilot checked his watch. Eight minutes to station. He communicated this to the other elements of his flight on a low-band frequency, hoping its slow transmission speed would shield them from the high-powered sensor suite of their target. It seemed to work, as the ship gave no indication of being aware to their presence.

After that, the mobile suits passed in silence, each individual pilot preparing for what they were about to do. God knew it wouldn't be easy. But then again, they weren't called on for easy missions. All twenty-four pilots had been bloodied in combat. Some more than others. He cast a wary eye at his rear-view screens, currently being filled by the lead white-trimmed Windam. Certainly that one and the others like him had more than enough kills to their credit. Though they were nominally on the same side, that didn't stop them giving him the creeps whenever he had to interact with them.

Six minutes passed in silence, the distance readouts in their HUDs decreasing steadily. Then the readout started _increasing_.

"Shit." He brought up the Command Overview on one of his multifunction displays. Sure enough, the target was on the move. Soon enough, it'd be out of range entirely without a course correction on the part of the mobile suits. He cursed again. Any course correction would light them up, clear as day, on the target's thermal scanners. They could just pass by, hopefully remain undetected, and wait to get picked up after the target moved off. But that would leave them in a MS cockpit for far too long. And he really didn't like leaving the initiative to the enemy. He bit his lip, hesitating, just as any sane man might do before initiating combat. Then he accessed the low-band frequency he used earlier.

"All units, course correction on my mark."

* * *

It was Miriallia's shift again on the bridge. So far, it wasn't particularly difficult. In fact, her duties mostly seemed to entail staying out of her officers' way so they could make sure everything was running smoothly, and they were all experienced enough that they didn't need much direction from her anyway. Since the task force hadn't decided on their next move yet, there weren't many orders she could give. As far as she could tell, she was there just in case something went wrong. So she spent her time familiarizing herself with command protocols, the orders she was allowed to give, ship systems she had not been exposed to in the CIC but thought she ought to be familiar with as a commander, contingency plans for combat or isolation from friendly forces, and other things. It was a daunting list and she rather wished she had more time to prepare for her new duties, but she supposed she was lucky to have Captain Ramius, Ensign Neumann, and the other experienced crew members to use as a resource. There were worse ways to learn, after all. The flight from Heliopolis had been bad in the lower decks. She couldn't imagine having to do it as a first command, on an unfamiliar ship, by trial and error. If Murrue could do _that_, Mir could learn on the job. If necessary.

A thought occurred to her. "Neumann, how far off are we from the _Diana_?"

"Just a moment," he said in his raspy voice, pulling up a readout of the surrounding area on a screen so she could see it. "We're a fair distance off." A marker for the friendly ship appeared, its coordinates labeled just under it.

"What's the _Diana_'s effective weapons range?"

"Here," said the weapons officer, who pushed the data to the screen. It was represented graphically as several overlapping circles around the _Diana_, the nearest of which was a few kilometers away from the _Archangel_.

"Alright, let's get inside that range, so that _Diana_ can provide cover for us, and us for them, if necessary."

"Aye, ma'am," said Neumann, who gently worked the thrusters so that the ship began accelerating at low speed towards the _Diana_. They weren't anywhere near the ship's maximum speed, but there was no need to tax the engines or the reactor when things were calm. Satisfied that she had done something tactically relevant, Mir leaned back into the command chair and returned to her studies, only to be interrupted by the sensor officer.

The man frowned. "Ma'am, I'm getting some contacts on the passive LADAR…" By using multiple beams of light at frequencies just outside the visible spectrum rather than the lower frequency radio waves used in the ship's traditional radar, LADAR provided more responsive and clearer imaging than radar at the expense of increased refraction and scattering due to particulates in the atmosphere such as dust, water vapor, or even just the molecules that made up the very air. While this did not represent an improvement on standard radar while on Earth, the array came into its own in the much emptier expanses of space. It had just recently been fitted to the _Archangel_'s sensor arrays (in fact, only a few days prior to departing for the trip they were currently on), essentially tripling her passive sensor range.

"How many? And what heading?" asked Mir.

"Somewhere between sixteen and twenty-four. They're small, so the array is having trouble differentiating between individual contacts at this extreme range. But they're arranged in two parallel lines and are headed right for our previous position."

"How parallel?"

"Perfectly."

"That's not natural. Meteoroids wouldn't follow that sort of path…" The new contacts were now marked on the display. The rear marks were fuzzy. Suddenly, they flared brightly and solidified.

"Contacts are now giving off engine signatures and have changed course. Now bound directly for us." The sensor officer relayed this calmly, businesslike. "Matching… that's odd. The signatures appear to be… _masked_?"

The bridge was silent as the man frantically worked his station, adjusting filters and frequencies to try to isolate the base emission. Then he went pale. When he spoke again, his voice was carefully controlled.

"Ma'am, using the new sensor gear I've managed to cut through the distortion." He swallowed. "Those engines are consistent with twenty-four GAT-04 Windams. And judging from the masking, these are probably modified special operations models. They'll be in weapons range in just about a minute and a half."

The bridge crew looked to her expectantly, old hands and new. They needed orders. Mir was feeling the adrenaline rush now and took a deep breath. There was no good reason for twenty-four stealth Windams to be approaching the ship. If she was wrong, it'd turn into one hell of an international incident. But there were more important thing to worry about now. She was not about to risk the safety of her crew, and make no mistake, they were _her_ crew now, on the remote possibility that some sort of twisted drill was being run in their area.

"Contacts to be treated as hostile," she declared. "Sound the alarm. All crew to Level-1 Battle Stations. All pilots to their machines. Rouse the captain. Get the _Diana_ on the line and have them back us up. Deploy all weapons. Load missile tubes with Sledgehammers and spool up the CIWS. Charge Gottfrieds and the Lohengrins. Neumann, prepare for evasive maneuvers and get us up to maximum combat speed. We need to buy time to launch the Justice and Akatsuki and for the _Diana_'s back-up to arrive. Whoever these pilots are, they're going to be sorry they messed with us." Her voice had a ring of authority she hadn't realized she was capable of.

"Aye, ma'am!" It was a chorus. The bridge was suddenly a flurry of activity as all the officers set about their tasks. The klaxon began to blare, roughly waking anyone sleeping, veterans jerking awake in an instant, green crewman blearily coming around. The lights dimmed. The ship was entering combat.

* * *

Sleep had not come to Athrun. Coffee at half past three in the morning was probably not the best way to wind down. It didn't stop him from trying, he'd tossed and turned fruitlessly for a few minutes before giving up and turning to training reports to keep himself occupied. That wasn't working either. Normally, such things would knock him right out. Cagalli was no better, but that was to be expected. She just seemed to need less sleep than most people, and the little they had gotten apparently did not bother her. It would have bothered him had he not known Kira to work through the night on occasion, not realizing the new day had dawned until it was already halfway over. He may have been genetically modified before birth, but they were still related. He idly wondered how Lacus dealt with it. He'd have to ask her someday.

The alarm interrupted his chain of thought. He was a bit slow in reacting, as he hadn't been prepared to scramble, hadn't considered the possibility they'd be attacked while aboard the _Archangel_. On the ground, sure, but attacking a warship? Then training took over and he was nearly out the door, but stopped. He turned. Cagalli was watching him.

"Go," she said. "Be safe."

He kissed her briefly, really only a peck, just in case. Then he was out the door. It wasn't a goodbye, he didn't want to say goodbye, but he wouldn't forgive himself if something happened. There was the slightest increase in background noise, a distant mechanical rumble, along with a small vibration as the ship's engines were brought up to power. The burble of voices, the sound of the rotating railings lining the corridors as crewmen moved as fast as they could through the limited gravity to their assigned stations. It was familiar, he'd experienced it on every ship he'd ever served on. Mu came up behind him, silent, grim-faced, and they entered the ready room together.

This, too, was a familiar moment. More than a hundred sorties made changing into his flight suit second nature, easily sliding into the black and maroon and white and gold uniform, running through the safety checks almost by rote. No rips or tears, vacuum seals undamaged, oxygen equipment green. Helmet integrity uncompromised. Good to go. Behind him, Mu had finished as well, his suit identical in design, the only difference being in color, purple instead of maroon, silver instead of gold. They sealed their helmets, linking them to the oxygen recyclers on their backs. There was no time to speak, only time to move and move with maximum economy, not a motion to be wasted. They would decide their strategy from the cockpit.

It took them three and a half minutes from when the klaxon had first sounded to their arrival on the hangar deck. The _Archangel_ was now fully engaged; she had fired first, a Valiant salvo for each column, forcing the formations to scatter. Now the ship was trying to keep the wheeling enemy mobile suits away with a withering barrage from the CIWS and individually targeted Sledgehammers. The Gottfrieds had fired one salvo each and were charge-cycling, trying to stay at maximum power as much as possible. The Lohengrins had not fired at all, lying in wait for a mothership to show itself. The _Diana _would soon enter the fray as her crew finished coming to battle stations. This was a game of minutes. By the time Athrun and Mu were on the hangar deck, the _Archangel_ was taking fire. So far it was only cosmetic damage, but it was a sobering reminder of how close things were.

Suddenly Athrun found himself before the Infinite Justice. If at all possible, it looked even more foreboding than usual. It seemed to be leaning forward in anticipation, various fins and control surfaces casting angular shadows across its whole body, giving it, in its current unpowered state, a grey and black patchwork camouflage. Its command spire gleamed. In his peripheral vision he could see the warm glow of the Akatsuki as it seemed to attract all light in the room. He rolled his neck, making sure he was nice and loose before subjecting himself to the strain of combat.

Murdoch approached. "You all right?" he asked in his gruff, raspy voice.

"Fine," said Athrun, reaching for the lift cable to the cockpit hatch. He paused a moment. "Anything I need to know?" he asked.

"Nah," said the chief. "Just try not to break it, all right? You and I both know how much of a pain in the ass it is to fix a Gundam."

Athrun chuckled. He could always rely on Murdoch to try to lighten the mood. "Will do, Chief."

"Good luck out there," said the affable mechanic as Athrun grabbed the lift cable and ascended into the Gundam.

As he settled into his seat and strapped in, he could feel his nervousness start to subside. It always did at this point, as he started to shift into combat mode, but it was more than that. It was a feeling of _belonging_. He could feel it in his bones as he closed the hatch and brought up all the viewscreens and began to run through his preflight checks. This was the place he was meant to be. Not just in a mobile suit, but _his_ mobile suit, one designed and tuned especially for him, created specifically so that he could fight to the maximum of his ability. He let the combat operator's briefing wash over him, taking it in without allowing it to disrupt his state of mind. Climbing into the Saviour had never felt like this, had always felt somehow off, somehow unstable. Perhaps it was a product of the mobile suit and its frame, but he had never felt at ease in it. But the Justice was another matter entirely. It felt… right. He reached out and touched the control sticks, pressed lightly on the pedals, remembering the play in them. Distantly, on the other catapult, he was aware of Mu.

"Mu La Flaga, Akatsuki. Let's go!" he shouted, and he was hurled from the hangar bay and out into the whirling firefight. He knew Mu would fight with his all, adrenaline having erased any lingering doubts and anxieties that plagued him. Mu did not fear his demons in combat, was as sure of himself as he ever would be. Whatever dark corner Neo Roanoke lurked in was forgotten for the duration of the battle.

Athrun heard the flight control officer give the all-clear. He grabbed the sticks with full strength now and closed his eyes as the three lights above him each changed from red "ABORT" to green, glowing "CLEAR." Eyes still closed, he released the left stick, reached just behind his jaw to the visor release on the helmet, and pressed it. It was ritual, the last thing he did before launching. He opened his eyes, now seeing the world through a polarized visor. He was ready.

"Athrun Zala. Justice launching!"

He pushed the footpedals into the floor, firing his thrusters at full burn. With the hiss of mighty hydraulics, the catapult housing beneath him matched his speed and added to it, accelerating to more than two hundred miles an hour in roughly one hundred meters. The acceleration, as always, forced him back into his seat as the catapult released him into the vacuum. As he cleared the ship he activated his phase shift armor, bringing out the Infinite Justice's striking crimson and white color scheme.

As he left the _Archangel_, he was immediately set upon by three hostiles, white-trimmed Windams. The plain Windams appeared to be focused on the ship itself as Mu dueled three other white-trimmed assailants. Athrun's enemies seemed reluctant to close with him, perhaps aware of his strength in close combat. Instead they harried him with beam rifle shots and missiles from back-mounted racks. The missiles were simple enough to deal with; he could pull maneuvers that gave their guidance systems fits or simply shoot them down. Not that they could penetrate his phase-shift armor anyway, but these enemies seemed smart enough to realize that, using them as distractions and countermeasures to his charges rather than 'fire-and-forget' tactics that the Earth Alliance had used in the wars. They were also smart enough to cover each other whenever he wormed his way out of target lock and tried to close with both his Fatum-01 flyer and with the Justice itself. Whenever he broke through, one of them had always managed to flank him, forcing him to break off and dodge as a beam cut through the area he would have been if he continued to pursue a single target.

It was quite clear that Mu was having just as much luck as he was, still engaged in a looping multi-angle dogfight as he tried to gain the advantage with his DRAGOONs. They were using much different tactics against the Akatsuki, constantly harrying it, forcing it to move and dodge rapidly to avoid sword swipes. Clearly, they were aware that the golden mobile suit and its pilot simply weren't as strong up close. Mu was forced to use the drones as much defensively as offensively in order to prevent himself being attacked from behind while another enemy was attacking simultaneously from the front.

While the Infinite Justice did not have quite so many ranged options as the Akatsuki or the Strike Freedom, it was no slouch in that department either. After warding off another attacker with the Fatum's Hyper Fortis cannons, he detached both beam boomerangs from his shoulders and sent them winging off towards the other two opponents. Next he drew his rifle, exchanging blasts with the returning first hostile. Using the extra thrust afforded him by the Fatum, Athrun rocketed straight up, quickly escaping his pursuer and banking to come around behind one of the other enemy suits as the boomerang, dodged on its first pass, began to return. To distract his target he charged, weaving between its return fire, engaging it with both his rifle and CIWS. But in an incredible display of reflexes the Windam dodged first a green bolt from the Justice, then barely managed to throw itself out of the way of the boomerang, escaping with only a gouge on the ankle instead of being cut in half.

Athrun scowled. There was simply no way a Natural had that kind of reflexes. He pulled a backwards loop to bring himself down in front of the other boomerang-targeted enemy, which had dodged the returning weapon without damage. Coming down, he ignited the heavy saber built into his shield, bringing it down in a crushing blow, his opponent barely managing to interpose his shield before Athrun split him into two vertical pieces. Unfortunately for the Windam, this wrecked the shield and Athrun had more blades. He activated one of the leg-mounted Griffon sabers and, with a lightning fast kick, severed the enemy's weapon arm before its allies could push him away. Then he was forced to retreat as the other Windams had managed to get a target lock again.

This was taking far too long. "_Archangel_, what's the ETA for reinforcements from _Diana_?" he asked, breaking his concentration for only a second before returning his full awareness to the fight in front of him. How long had it been? Two minutes? Three? The _Archangel_ was tough, but against eighteen heavily armed and highly skilled hostiles… the ship could only survive for a few minutes without taking a critical hit. Things would only snowball from there.

"They're on their way, Admiral, on station in eighty seconds," replied the comms officer. Athrun risked a glance at the ship. Captain Ramius, Mir, and the gun crews were certainly giving the Windams a lot of trouble, jinking away from the artillery blasts and careful to prevent the lighter-armed but faster hostiles from hitting any section of ablative armor faster than it could radiate the heat. Really, Neumann deserved a medal. The man was a prodigy. As he watched, the _Archangel_ nimbly performed a barrel roll over another cannon shot, destroying the offender's weapon with a 110cm round from the port Valiant. The Windam itself escaped with minor damage, but one of the enemy's heavy weapons was out of play.

He surveyed his own situation. One enemy missing an arm, one whole, and one with a damaged ankle joint, which would only be a problem as it came into land. Athrun was managing to hold his own without having to resort to what Kira referred to as 'berserker mode' despite not technically fitting the definition of berserker. But he didn't know a better name for it, and he still had three highly motivated hostiles to deal with. He re-engaged, drawing two beam sabers and combining them into a double ended weapon, keeping his shield's saber active as well. The hostiles scattered, trying to catch him in a crossfire, but he simply switched his shield to instead output a lightwave barrier, deflecting two rounds while dodging the third, continuing on his approach to the one-armed Windam, still firing coolly and precisely, no panic at all. These pilots were certainly well trained.

Now Athrun was in his element, close combat, and extended the wings on the Fatum, activating their integrated Griffon beam sabers. He rushed his opponent, dropping his wing angle so that the blade would tear through the enemy suit's knee joints, but the Windam drew a saber in its remaining hand and parried the attack, though the Justice's greater momentum knocked the other suit away, spinning head over heels. Athrun quickly changed direction, feeling the inertial tug on his body, ignored it, and rocketed back towards his unset enemy before its allies could stop him. The enemy Windam barely blocked the initial strike from the Justice's double ended saber but fell prey to a backhanded strike that destroyed its right leg, cutting straight through the appendage just below the hip joint. It pushed its thrusters full reverse, trying to escape, as the other two, apparently having given up on trying to blast the crimson mobile suit away from their fellow, instead charged, sabers drawn. This forced Athrun to turn his attention away from the heavily damaged Windam, which proceeded to whirl around and open its throttle, escaping the battlefield.

Now the _Diana_'s mobile suits had arrived, escorted by a volley from the ship's 'Isolde' heavy turret. The massive shells streaked over the _Archangel_, scattering the attackers once more. The _Diana_'s contingent was led by Kira in the Strike Freedom, who immediately deployed his DRAGOONs and engaged the heavy Windams. He was followed by Luna's old red ZAKU Gunner, two Blaze ZAKU Phantoms (one black and one royal blue, belonging to Dearka and Shiho, respectively), and a silver GOUF Ignited with red streaks. The two heavies, Luna and Dearka, immediately took up positions protecting the _Archangel_'s flanks while Shiho and who Athrun assumed to be Shinn engaged the attackers up close. The _Diana_ was moving into position to bring her 'Tristan' Gottfried turrets to bear and in the meantime launched a volley of missiles to give the enemy pilots something else to think about. The engagement was rapidly turning against the aggressors, who began to pull back, covering each other's retreat as they did so.

Athrun had caused minor damage to both of his remaining opponents: the ankle he had damaged earlier and now he had carved off a chunk of the other's shoulder armor. The joint itself was undamaged, but very vulnerable now even to low-caliber weapons. Every dodge they were making now brought them further and further away from the ships. He realized they were also attempting to retreat. He pursued, but found himself the target of a storm of gunfire from the main body of the regrouping Windams, a few of whom had also suffered hits, but none totally disabled.

"Athrun." Dearka's voice came over the comm. "Fall back and let the big guns handle this."

"Roger that," he replied, and pulled back on the throttle, making sure to provide plenty of room between himself and the mass of hostiles. "I'm clear. Take your shot."

"Lohengrins One and Two… firing," announced Miriallia.

"Really shouldn't have messed with us…" murmured the weapons officer quietly, but still over the comm.

Two huge cannons from the lower part of the _Archangel_'s legs spewed forth oscillating blue-and-red beams of pure destruction, aimed perfectly at the center of the retreating group of Windams. The salvo impacted something, causing a massive bloom of light and heat that overwhelmed any nearby sensors. By the time their eyes and scopes had cleared, the Windam formation had vanished.

"Did we get them?" asked Mu cautiously.

"Even if we didn't," said Dearka, "they're probably not too eager to come back."

"Heh. Amen to that," said Mu.

"Did anyone get a ping on the mothership?" asked Athrun. "Those guys had to come from somewhere."

"Not a peep," said Murrue. "It's still hiding out there."

Then Athrun saw something floating in the middle distance, and maneuvered over to it. It was the arm he'd severed from the first Windam. "Got some debris here. I'll bring it in for Murdoch and his boys to look at. See if they notice anything interesting."

"Roger that, Athrun. He'll be waiting."

"Thanks for the assist there, _Diana_," said Mu, also on his way back to the _Archangel_.

"Don't mention it," replied Kira. "We've got your back. And Captain Ramius, permission to land in the hangar?"

"Of course."

"_Diana_, I'll be back in two or three hours."

"Understood," replied Dearka. "Have fun." He pinged the other three _Diana_ pilots and they broke off and returned to their ship.

Kira landed behind Mu on the port catapult deck as Athrun took the starboard, walking in with the Windam's arm as the Akatsuki returned to its gantry and the Strike Freedom returned to its old berth, which was unoccupied since the _Archangel_'s hangar was nowhere near filled to capacity. The mechanics brought around a trolley, normally used to transport spare parts or munitions, and Athrun gently laid down the recovered debris on it, and returned to his own gantry, powering down on the way and letting out a deep breath, allowing himself to relax. He brought up various mechanical readouts and scanned them quickly, just to make sure nothing was wrong with his MS, brought the machine down to standby, then cracked open the cockpit hatch and lowered himself with the lift cable, unsealing his helmet as he did so. He removed it entirely once he'd gotten both feet on the hangar deck, allowing the tension to fall away from his neck and shoulders. He was back.

* * *

**You might be wondering where the stolen Gundams are. I will only say they are waiting in the wings, intending to strike when they may do the most damage… this ride is only going to get wilder.**


	7. Phase 06: Playing the Game

**A/N: Minor edits to Phase 4 and Phase 5 are up along with this chapter, mostly for clarity and flow. Also expanded the explanation of the LADAR, which is a real thing that I may have embellished a little. **

JULY 31, CE 75

Murdoch and his mechanics, once they had finished the minor maintenance that Gundams always required, finicky as they were, proceeded to spend much of the next seventy two hours pulling apart the arm Athrun had retrieved, examining every component critically, from the outer layers of armor down to the skeleton beneath in the hopes that there was something on it that could tell exactly who might have attacked them. Kira shuttled back and forth from the _Diana_ to help, not just as an excuse to visit Athrun and Cagalli and everyone else, but also because he was just as knowledgeable about mobile suits as the veteran crew chief himself. Still, it was exhausting work and they were all coated with grease and other industrial fluids by the end of their long days in the hangar. Miriallia had taken pity on Kira and found a cot for him so that he wouldn't have to sleep in the Strike Freedom's cockpit when he needed a nap. But seventy two hours after they had been attacked, the investigation had finally started yielding results.

"Aha!" exclaimed Murdoch, holding up an ion pump like a trophy, connecting cables hanging from it like severed tendons. The piece, and indeed the mechanic himself, was liberally coated in the fluid it had once pumped through the former Windam's primary limb motors.

"What have you got, Chief?" asked Kira, looking up from his detailed inspection of the power linkages that ran to the armor plate.

"This, kid-" Murdoch still affectionately called Kira that, despite the young man essentially being a ship captain, "is a serial number!" He pointed to the underside of the unit, where Kira could make out a sequence of numbers.

"Can we track it?"

"That's the idea, wouldn't you say?"

Kira grinned. "Progress." The two men slapped hands in a gesture of mutual satisfaction.

Murdoch turned to the other on-duty mechanics. "All right, you lot, we've got enough for now. Go wash up and get some shut-eye." He chuckled. "It'll still be here when we get back." The chief returned his attention to Kira, keeping one eye on his crew as they broke up into idle chatter and teasing as they moved off the hangar floor. "You and me," he nodded to Kira, "I say we get some coffee, put together what we know, and get everyone in the loop." The younger man shrugged his agreement and together they moved off to the elevator.

"We knew they were modified just from the sensor contacts," said Kira. "But I'd barely even count them as Windams anymore. Just from looking at the arm, those things were practically Gundams. They'd certainly top one of the first generation G-Weapons."

Murdoch grunted and ran a greasy hand through his hair, seemingly heedless of the mess he made of it. "Huh. G-Weapons. How apt. Cause this-" he gestured with the ion pump he was still carrying, "if I recall correctly, is a successor to the type of pumps used in the Strike. Basic structure's basically the same, just a little smaller and a good bit more efficient. And you know what else? Damned expensive. And sensitive, control-wise. Not the sort of thing you'd give a Natural pilot, no matter how good he was."

They had arrived at the galley. Kira opened the door and allowed Murdoch to enter the room first. "Well, it fits. Those power linkages fed transphase armor fields," pointed out Kira. "Improved agility, up-armored, probably up-gunned as well, given what Athrun and Mu have told us. A suit brought up to spec for someone with better reflexes and training than a Natural pilot…"

"No pirate group is well-funded enough to upgrade a Windam when there are plenty of surplus Coordinator-make mobile suits out there, either as salvage or just plain bought from a grey-market dealer."

"So then why bother upgrading? The only reason to do that would be to avoid using Coordinator tech." Kira accepted the coffee cup Murdoch poured for him. He took a swig and tried to will the caffeine to enter his bloodstream as fast as possible. Anything to sharpen his mind at the moment.

Murdoch chuckled grimly. "Guess who hates Coordinators and just also happens to have pilots specifically designed and trained to kill them?"

"Cosmos. Figures." Kira scowled. "I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose." He stood. "Come on, we've got a report to deliver."

The bridge was already crowded when they arrived, something that immediately struck Kira as ominous. Cagalli was restlessly pacing under the main viewscreen while Murrue leaned forward in the command chair, propped up on her elbows. Her brow was furrowed in thought and her hands were folded in front of her mouth. Mir was sitting on the lip of the CIC pit with her feet dangling in it, while Mu was standing comfortably behind the command chair, hands equidistant on its headrest. Lastly, Athrun was standing out in the middle of the room, arms crossed. They already had a line open to the _Diana_ and Lacus had been about to say something when she was interrupted by Kira and Murdoch's arrival.

"What's going on?" inquired Kira. "Something the matter?"

"Good timing. We were just about to send for you," said Mu, turning to look over his shoulder at them. "Now that we're all here," he continued, returning his attention to the screen, "We can get started."

Lacus cleared her throat. "First off," she said, "we've received another drop from the source that leaked us the video of the attack at Cape Town." She paused, exhaling. "It's not good news. Porta Panama was attacked last night. Similar style, but a different objective, it seems. The data drop was another recording, sent in the same manner as the Cape Town file, which leads us to believe they're from the same source."

"They made a move already?" asked Athrun quietly, as if not quite comprehending the news.

Mu suddenly took on a grim expression. "If those Windams that attacked us are related to those Gundams, they're damn well coordinated. Normally, I'd hesitate to use the word 'military' but Blue Cosmos was always just a step away from being granted veteran's pensions by the Alliance brass."

Kira's mouth was very dry all of a sudden. "Can you put up the video?" he asked, though dreading what he would see.

Lacus nodded, then her image was replaced with security camera footage, running timestamp in the corner of the screen. At first, the base at Porta Panama laid undisturbed, but in the space of ten seconds nine mobile suits dropped out of the sky and impacted solidly on the main runway, backs to the camera. Six were Windams, visually identical to the models that the task force encountered, that split up into two teams of three, spreading out to enter the hangars. The other three however, did not seem interested in what their compatriots were doing. As the base came to life, the three instead deployed weapons and began to methodically destroy the surrounding area, starting with the air-traffic control tower and the sensor and communication arrays mounted on top of it. Soon, it had been reduced to smoking rubble and three machines turned to face both the camera and arriving Alliance mobile suits, reinforcements scrambled to meet the intruders.

They were machines designed to give men nightmares. All three were more than a meter taller than their enemies, and Kira figured they were heavier as well, judging by the way they moved. If he considered the whole designs, he could see the influence of the original G-Weapons in their designs, a lineage that informed not only the Earth Forces mass-production suits, but Orb's and the unique suits in their own little battlegroup. But individually, the three stolen Gundams each distorted the form into something much more specialized and rather less graceful than the other suits that had descended from those first five.

The center machine had phase-shifted to a dark purple color, trimmed in black and bronze. The V-fin antenna on its head had been split into two, each component rounded, curved, and canted upward so that they resembled bronzed horns rather than a golden crest. Rather than the visor-style optics the Alliance seemed to prefer, the sensor "eyes" were instead laid out like the original G-Weapons and colored green. It had wide shoulders and heavy pauldrons that also curved upwards into spikes, while its torso was somewhat chunkier than its ancestors. Its legs were also larger, with prominent spikes extending from the knee armor and wide-bore thrusters extending from the calf housing. Its feet were wider than normal for a Natural designed machine, nearly as large as a ZAKU's. Kira noted the hard-mounted linear cannons at its clavicles and what seemed to be twin multi-phase beam cannons that would swing down under the arms when in use, like the Strike's Agni cannon. It did not carry a physical shield, but as Kira watched, prominent gauntlets slid down to lock over the machine's wrists. Preparing to take on the Alliance reinforcements, the mobile suit extended four curved, golden, beam blades, two from each gauntlet, which gave the machine 'claws.' Further back on the gauntlet assembly, Kira could see prominent devices that he could only assume were lightwave barrier generators, addressing the issue of defense. It charged into the mass of enemies at a much higher speed than Kira had expected considering its bulk. Clearly, it also had powerful thrusters.

The left machine was mainly a sandy brown, with individual armor pieces shifted orange. It carried an orange physical shield, trimmed in white, similar in concept to what the Strike and the original Freedom had utilized. However, this shield seemed to be taller and thicker, and was also angled roughly two-thirds of the way up its length, which provided a point of emphasis for when the machine charged while leading with it. The suit's frame was similar to its purple 'sibling,' omitting the Gothic horns and spikes for stark, linear geometry but retaining the green optics. Its V-fin had a much wider angle between the antennas than any MS Kira had ever seen. They were also particularly broad. It carried a long, wide-barreled rifle in its right arm and seemed to have additional weapons integrated into its torso, along with the hilt of a beam saber on its right hip.

Finally, the right machine was a dark green on the outer plates of its armor and olive green on the inner plates. Its most distinctive features were the wing-like projections on its back, wholly dissimilar to both the original Freedom's HiMAT wings and the Destiny's Wings of Light emitters. Instead, they sprouted almost perpendicularly from the suit's shoulder blades before angling down sharply. They appeared to both enhance and vector the thrust from the main engines and perhaps act as additional thrusters in-and-of themselves. Its V-fin crest had been faired back aerodynamically so that rather than stand 'straight-up' as most were laid out, it instead 'leaned back' at a forty-five degree angle. It carried a small, pointed physical shield, a buckler really, that had a lightwave emitter and in the other hand a ten-meter long, beam-edged anti-ship sword. Stored on its hips were twin beam carbines. Multi-missile launchers were mounted over the shoulders, reminiscent of the Blast Impulse. Lastly, stored above the rear skirt armor, there was a short, but wide, beam cannon, clearly a close-range but large-area weapon.

The Gundam with the shield stayed back, targeting structures with its heavy rifle, leaving the other two to fight the motley assemblage of Windams and Daggers that the Alliance had scrambled. The green and purple machines charged right into the fray, purple using its claws to impale and gouge its opponents in an almost animalistic fury while the green opted for precise sword swings to bisect its opponents while using its shield as another weapon, knocking its opponents off balance with a smash or targeting joints with its point, in a very martial style. The more than thirty Alliance mobile suits were quickly reduced to a ragged ten trying to conduct a fighting retreat. Before the _Archangel_ and _Diana_ crews could see the battle's outcome, the building the camera was mounted on was hit by one of the brown Gundam's rifle rounds, suddenly angling the camera towards the ground before the feed dissolved into static as the camera presumably lost power or was crushed by rubble. Standard procedure for most militaries was to remotely back up all data to secure storage facilities whole countries away, so that any information on sneak attacks could be preserved and analyzed in order to shore up any vulnerabilities. That was the only reason they were able to view this footage, because the camera had assumedly transmitted its data in a final burst before going offline.

The view of the _Diana_'s bridge was now back up on the main screen. Nobody spoke for a moment.

"Well, Alliance R&amp;D has certainly been busy," muttered Shinn in the link's background.

"I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they're still out there," said Dearka. "Cause if they got taken down, someone would be crowing about it."

"Has the Alliance made any moves?" asked Luna.

"They've tasked a ship to investigate, but nothing public yet," replied Cagalli.

"_One_ ship!? Do they not know what those things are capable of? I don't know how they wouldn't, they built them after all, but still…"

"They're scared and trying to keep it quiet," countered Cagalli. "And, to be fair, it's their newest and toughest ship, really not that far off from our strategy, except that we're two countries working together and therefore have two ships."

"Any other new intel?" interrupted Yzak.

"As a matter of fact, there is…" said Murdoch, stepping forward and hoisting the ion pump up so everyone could see it. "We've got _this_."

* * *

While Ric had every confidence in his skills and thought that his new Blood Dagger was certainly an excellent machine, he couldn't help but feel a little queasy at the scale of the destruction at Porta Panama. The _Odysseus_ was the first ship to arrive on station but even so the enemy was long gone by the time they arrived. Not too long, though. The wreckage was still smoking.

"This is just nuts," he said to Tasha and Trey as they touched down on the main landing strip, now rather worse for wear and pockmarked with destroyed mobile suits and munitions craters. "Our guys got squashed like bugs. I can't help but wonder why we didn't just cut our losses when they started blowing up buildings."

"Because they're _our_ buildings and we don't like people blowing them up," retorted Tasha.

"Yeah, well, if it came down to living or having an intact barracks," said Ric, nudging the rubble of what used to be the ATC tower with the foot of his Dagger, "I think I'd go with living."

"You have no shame."

"Maybe not, but I do have a well-developed sense of self-preservation."

"No you don't. Last time we were on leave, you started hitting on that girl _with her boyfriend next to her_."

"That was _one_ time."

"You tried the same thing with a different girl the weekend before. What was her name? Started with an L… Laura? Lindsey? Anyway, the point is her boyfriend nearly broke your jaw, and I kind of wish he had. Or were you too drunk to remember?"

"I remember, but in my defense, she was gorgeous."

"So pretty women make you stupid?"

"I maintain that it was worth the risk."

Trey had heard enough. "Cut it out," he said. "Let's see if we can't pick up their trail. Come on." He moved off into the ruins of the main hangars. Ric and Tasha followed close behind, making sure to cover the group's six and their vertical. Just because the enemy appeared to have left didn't mean there wasn't an ambush lying in wait. But the hangars were all too empty, the enemy well and truly gone. It was incredibly frustrating. The bastards were just too good, too quick, and they knew exactly what they were after out in the field. The same was not true for the _Odysseus_ pilots. What was the point of being the first responder if there was nothing left to respond to?

"What were these guys doing, anyway?" asked Ric. "I mean, this is probably the emptiest hangar I've ever seen on an active base. Was this for show or what?"

"Doubt it," said Trey. He flipped between several visual filters, checking all the hangars thermally, for electronic emissions, for anything. But nothing burned, no power tools had been left to run. On an active base, there would've been upward of a half-dozen things sensor-tagged by now. "All the others are empty too," he continued. "Hey Tasha, can you check the status of the base's fuel tanks?"

"Yeah," she replied, and moved over to the silos at the end of the hangar row, normally full of fuel for ships, tanks, and atmospheric fighters, then brought her suit down to one knee to get a closer look. "Valves are open. They're all empty, too."

"No spare parts and no fuel… did they raid the base for supplies?" wondered Ric. "There's gotta be a better way to get them than hitting a military base."

"Maybe so, but it didn't seem to discourage them. And they've deprived the Alliance of a lot of materiel, no two ways about it," said Trey.

"So they knock out our tracking and communications so we can't follow them, destroy the base so we can't resist them, then make off with our supplies so they can do it again. Man, I _really_ hate these guys."

Tasha sighed. "There's nothing for us here," she said. "No point in hanging around."

"Oh, Halley's gonna _love_ this," griped Ric as they lifted off to return to the ship.

* * *

As Ric had sagely predicted, Halley was rather frustrated with the lack of progress the team had made. But he was also a reasonable man, who knew that treating subordinates harshly for things that were not their fault would only alienate them, and the whole crew besides, no matter how good it might feel to vent. So, while his voice and expression tightened while they delivered their report to him across the desk in his office, he made no other outward sign of displeasure, an example of the discipline of which he was so proud. Then he sent them off to the simulators again. He needed them sharp and he needed them as comfortable in the Blood Daggers as they had been in their Windams, if not more so. And while the prototypes were in some ways similar to the older mass-production model, they were certainly more challenging to handle and required a deft hand in order to be utilized to their full potential. Fortunately, or rather, by military policy, the pilots of the _Odysseus_ were a detachment of the 13th Autonomous Corps, the premier mobile suit unit in the regular Alliance military. The role of the _Odysseus_ was to be a force multiplier for any battlegroup, using its heavy armament and elite pilots to achieve precise objectives on a larger battlefield, a relatively small but hard-hitting asset. It was a role honed by the _Archangel_ and the _Minerva_, and now the Earth Alliance wanted an ace like that up its sleeve. Thus the Thirteenth and its new mothership.

While the occasional Special Forces pilot might qualify as the 'best' pilot in the military as a whole, the pilots of the Thirteenth were consistently ranked near or at the top of the list. Which was sort of the point, really – the Thirteenth had been the pilots of the first Alliance mobile suits that ever saw action, during the Battle of Porta Panama in the First Bloody Valentine War, and had given a good accounting of themselves in general combat. That they had been practically wiped out by ZAFT's GUNGNIR EMPs in that battle did not dissuade many prospective pilots. Indeed, applications for transfers _to_ the unit had flooded in, and something of a mystique had built up around the unit, which adopted the official motto "Indomitable," was considered "The First In and the Last Standing" by its supporters, and was denigrated as "Unlucky Number Thirteen" by the hardcore mobile armor adherents. Regardless, it was the dream of many recruits to do a tour of duty with the Thirteenth. And those pilots fortunate and skilled enough to have been accepted into the unit did their damnedest to live up to the bravado. All proudly displayed the stark, black '13' somewhere on their machines, and any other pilot who managed to score a 'kill' on one of them during an exercise was usually treated to a drink by the other members and watched closely from then on to see if an invitation to join was merited. Few did, as the battlefield was more often than not ruled by chance – the 13th Auto was sloppy that day, or the opposition in the right place or the right time, or any number of other explanations. But the occasional pilot did pass muster. That was how Ric had joined the unit, besting three different 13th pilots on three separate exercises. He had been greeted with an invitation immediately upon landing from the third sortie. Tasha had fought a lengthy one-on-one duel with a 13th pilot and barely lost, crippling her opponent's machine besides. She had been fresh out of the academy at the time, and once the other members of the unit had seen the footage of the fight, they 'claimed' her from the recruit pool and the brass, eager to support their champions, made the assignment happen. Trey had been placed there based on his aptitude scores and simulator trials and was one of the few who made the 13th Auto without any of its members vouching for him. While his initial reception had been frosty, he'd more than earned his position by war's end.

The Thirteenth, though it didn't particularly appreciate the honor, was the most decorated Natural unit of the war and claimed more kills than the next three highest scoring units combined. Ric, Tasha, and Trey had all served with distinction during the initial attacks on ZAFT's Gibraltar base (12/10/73, an Alliance loss), the Battle of the Suez (19/10/73, a draw, upon which ZAFT fell back to lick its wounds), the Fall of Cyprus (22/10/73, another loss), and the Battle of the Black Sea Coast (26/10/73, where pursuing ZAFT forces attacked Alliance units across a wide front as they attempted to retreat into the main of Eurasia.) Then they, and the rest of the Thirteenth, had been rotated out, at which point Durandal broke LOGOS wide open. As a career frontline unit, and thus apolitical, they had nothing to do with the various occupations and war crimes that occurred under the LOGOS-dominated Alliance administrations. And since their loyalty was not secure, the Thirteenth, rather than participate in the disastrous battles at Heaven's Base and Daedalus where unquestionably loyal Alliance forces were slaughtered in droves, were instead shuffled from base to base by the big brass for the next month-and-a-half, to places where they would not pose a threat to defect or to morale. By the time the Alliance was desperate enough to use what they deemed to be 'unreliable' units, the Arzachel base was obliterated, which essentially eliminated any Alliance military actions until the chain of command was reconstituted, and the war ended before that could occur.

All of this did not particularly endear the Thirteenth and other professional units towards their superiors. While Halley was sympathetic and they still took orders, he had found they were more vocal in their disagreements with their officers, interpreted the orders they were given much more liberally, were more willing to bend regulations, and, he supposed, more likely to mutiny if they found their orders unlawful or suicidal. He hesitated to use the word 'independent' when describing them, since they were still technically subordinate, but they were certainly more self-possessed than the average frontline wings. They were unruly, undisciplined, and intransigent, but despite (or perhaps because of) that, they could outperform just about any Natural squadron any day, and most Coordinator teams on most days. A team of elite and battle-hardened ZAFT Reds in GOUFs might be a match for them, but few members of either side would be walking away from such a fight. And that would be without the Blood Daggers in play. With them, well…

Halley leaned forward in his chair, silently chastising himself for being distracted so long. He looked down at the surface of his desk, neatly organized, plastic in imitation of maple to save weight, and at the data drive in the center of it all that contained the report the Blood Dagger pilots had just given. He shoved it aside in disgust, since it was useless aside from confirming what he already knew to be true, and resolved to deal with it later. The important thing was to be ready to fight the stolen machines whenever they _did_ catch up with them, not to take inventory on an objective the enemy had already accomplished.

Touching a control on the terminal built into the desk, he opened a channel to his XO, Myers, who was currently running the ship.

"Heard anything?" Halley queried, fully expecting the answer to be negative.

"No, sir. Every listening post in a two hundred mile radius reported all quiet."

The captain sighed. Undoubtedly the enemy had the capacity to either bypass the listening posts, be it through codes or stealth technology, or simply controlled one or more. That meant all the posts unreliable. While he was a patriot, he had to admit that the Atlantic Federation was too damn big, too damn leaky, and had pissed off too damn many other countries to make this job take anything but a long time.

"Very well," he said, replying at last. "I'll ask you to remain on the conn for the next hour or so. Take us up."

"At what heading, sir?"

Halley rubbed the bridge of his nose and was very tempted to just blurt out '_Hell if I know, just pick one at random and hope we get lucky,_' but that would be unprofessional. Instead he said: "They've targeted our hardest military bases, so far. Make for the San Diego Naval Station. Now that it's the biggest staging area in North America, I'd bet it's on their radar."

"Aye, sir."

"And, Myers?"

"Sir?"

"Have the techs patch my office terminal in to the feed from the simulators. I'd like to see how the Blood Daggers are doing."

"At once, sir."

"Thank you." Halley closed the link before turning his attention to his terminal and attempting to make himself as comfortable as possible in his office chair, which, less than a week into the voyage, had already started deteriorating. The seat cushioning was collapsing, the backrest would slip if he leaned too far back, and the wheels were stuck more often than not. Its construction seemed to have been rather rushed. He looked around his office, which was merely an antechamber of his stateroom, and sighed. It wasn't the only thing.

* * *

Tasha guided her Blood Dagger out cautiously. The last sim they had flown, against the strange machine with its inhuman reflexes and remote weapons, had been an utter failure in tactics, gunnery, and in maneuvering. She _knew_ they could do better. They had to. Seeing firsthand the destruction of Panama had driven that lesson home far better than the intelligence photos they had been shown of Cape Town. And while the last sim had been brutal, she at least understood its purpose now. She had no doubt this one would be rough, too.

Ric and Trey had shared that sentiment. Ric, especially, seemed to have something bugging him, but for once he didn't grumble incessantly about it. He had actually been unusually quiet since they had returned. Tasha assumed he simply hadn't quite grasped the words he needed to complain vocally, yet, about whatever was on his mind. He would eventually, though. He had always been good at finding something, anything, to say when silence would really have better suited. She glanced over at Trey's suit. At least _he_ could usually be counted on to have tact.

Despite having taken her real machine out earlier and fighting three simulation missions in it against teams of ZAKUs and GOUFs, she still didn't quite trust herself at the controls. While it was true she had won her previous sim-battles, it was nothing she couldn't have done in her Windam just as well. Indeed, she had barely outperformed her old suit in those situations, though whether that was down to her or the Blood Dagger was a matter for debate. Perhaps the suit was not quite what had been promised. Wouldn't be the first time that had happened. Or perhaps she hadn't been pushing herself in the previous flights, since she had no cause to really see what the suit was capable of. This, though, would be the real test, and now they would find out, one way or the other.

Clear of the ship, she reached down and activated one of the systems that truly set the Blood Dagger apart from the Windam. The dull greyscale scheme of the machine's armor was replaced with inky black over the majority of the suit, stark white on the face plate and secondary armor plates, and over top them all, the scarlet slashes that both evoked fearsome war-paint and gave the machines their name. Phase shift. That had been the biggest change for the pilots, being able to bull through CIWS or take that extra moment to sight down a missile rather than break and evade. Tasha was careful not to rely on it. While shrapnel and explosives might not be able to penetrate phase-shifted armor, it didn't stop kinetic energy, which meant she could still be fragmented if hit hard enough. It just meant the armor plates would stay intact while the mechanicals inside the suit shattered and she was crushed by the G-force alone. Not a pleasant thought. It was also a constant power drain on her suit's battery. Even so, it was nice to have.

And, unlike the Strike and its brethren, the Blood Dagger had another innovation: a super-high capacity, high-density battery. With a physical size only a little larger than the Windam's high-capacity battery (which was itself a major improvement over the Strike's), the Blood Dagger's power plant gave the machine a little less than twice the running time of its predecessor in normal combat operations. Even with phase shift active, it still surpassed the Windam's combat time by a healthy amount and charged to full power faster, to boot. Thus, while more complex, the Blood Dagger actually spent _less_ time in maintenance than the Windam, since it was less prone to structural damage and was more power-efficient. It might not have been a Gundam, but it was just about as close as you could get without a nuclear reactor. Ric had been legitimately awed when he first got behind the controls. He was still a little giddy about it.

Rifle in one hand, shield in the other, Tasha also sighted in her shoulder shell-firing cannons to the same point as her Dagger's chest beam cannon, just to be on the safe side. Ric had opted for a beam sword, stowing his rifle, but had yet to ignite it. He was holding his shield out and away from his torso, both to give him more room to fire the chest cannon and to more accurately shoot using the shield's integrated cannon. Trey was searching sections of space with his rifle and did not otherwise betray any tactical moves.

Once again, they were out in open space, free to maneuver in any direction without fear of impacting anything larger than a micrometeroid, and even that would be next to impossible. Tasha actually wished there was at least some debris that they could use as cover, because it would only take one long-range beam shot to blow her to bits without her even seeing the attacker. And while that might be difficult to pull off for most pilots, it wouldn't surprise her in the least if that sort of thing was in the repertoire of the computer monster enemies she apparently fought now. Regular Coordinators were tough enough opposition, since, as a Natural, she could really only fight them on even terms thanks to the compensations of her suit's OS. Those software fixes helped automate things like the suit's balance and momentum that Coordinators could adjust manually, thanks to their more rapid reactions and finer motor control. It wasn't a lot, some Naturals could pilot with a stripped down Natural OS or a full-on Coordinator-spec OS, given a lot of practice, but it was what separated a walking mobile suit from one that fell on its face. In a way, the automations were also a limiting factor, as being able to manually control a suit without them meant that the pilot could theoretically bring out near-human agility from their machine. And, while Tasha was definitely skilled and used less automation in her tuned OS than the vast majority of Natural pilots, she still needed them in order to fight at her best. The problem was, it didn't look like her new enemies needed them at all.

For the first minute or two of the encounter, it seemed their enemy was following the same script as last time, namely, watching and waiting. However, just as Tasha was wondering how long they'd have to wait _this_ time, Ric suddenly perked up.

"Movement. Extreme range, some kind of baffling on the emissions," he said, panning over a section of space with his shield-cannon. "Low thermals and EM's kinda fuzzy. That's why I didn't spot him before." He adjusted his sensors to take the issues into account. "Yup. That's a bogey. Been circling us for a while now, seeing if he can't catch one of us off guard."

"Same one as last time?" asked Trey.

"No. Don't have much this far away, but the profile is pretty different. Not as brightly colored, either. New model for sure."

"Well, I doubted they'd throw the same thing at us twice in a row, anyway," commented Tasha. "Projected path?"

"Pushing it to you now."

On her main screen, her targeting software, designed to display information as graphically as possible so that it was easy to read at a glance, highlighted a speck in-between several stars and drew a thin yellow line that the computer calculated the enemy might follow based on its observed momentum. If the enemy speeded up, slowed down, or changed direction, the line would update in real time as long as she maintained sensor contact with the bogey. From her perspective, since space had no absolute up or down, the line curved gently up and right across her field of view. With the press of a button, she highlighted a point down the path with a red crosshair.

"Alright. Targeting solutions for this point," she said. "We'll all hit him at once."

"Roger that," replied Trey. "T-minus thirty out from the mark." A thirty second timer appeared, attached to the contact. The projected line between it and the target point became red.

Tasha worked quickly, maneuvering slightly to bring the multi-phase beam cannon mounted in her suit's torso in line with the solution, another line overlaid on her screen, this one connecting her and the target point. As the timer hit fifteen, she had also aligned the shoulder-mounted anti-materiel cannons to the point as well. She would only get one shot with them before the recoil disrupted her aim. The targeting computer would realign them, but it would take time she might not get. She would just have to make her shots count. Zeroed in, she pushed a ready notification, a simple green circle, to her comrades' displays and awaited their own. In a second or two, both of their circles had appeared on the lower edge of her screen.

"T-minus six," intoned Ric, following the countdown. "Five. Four. Three. Two. One… Fire."

In sync, three red-and-blue multi-phase beams streaked through the blackness of space, six high-explosive/armor-piercing shells hot on their heels. It was almost pretty, Tasha thought, but the destructive power they'd just unleashed far outweighed any unintentional beauty. It was enough ordnance to rip a battleship into mobile-suit-sized chunks. A little excessive, perhaps, for a single MS, but they were in space, didn't want to take the chance that the enemy might get up again, and it was a simulation anyway. Not that they would've hesitated to use that much firepower on a real mission. Reality could often be far stranger than anything a simulation could put up, and it was better to err on the side of caution. Thus, since ordnance shells came in several letter grades, a forgotten smartass appropriately dubbed the largest (which was to say, throwing as many shells downrange as possible) as 'P,' for plenty. Soldiers found themselves in lots of situations called for P-grade ordnance. This was one of them.

And while P usually got the job done, Ric, Tasha, and Trey could only watch as, somehow, their enemy suddenly burst into light, took multiple direct hits, disappeared, and then reappeared outside the fireball no worse for wear. It was now accelerating rapidly right for them, so fast it seemed to blur, a huge two-handed anti-ship sword held out in front of it like a lance.

"Throw up a barrage!" shouted Tasha. "Don't let him get close!" She opened up with everything: rifle, shield cannon, AM cannons, MP cannon, even her CIWS. The others followed suit, filling the vacuum with green bolts, tracer shells, and cannon blasts. Despite throwing everything they could, the charging mobile suit barely slowed down, preternaturally weaving between beams and HE/AP shells and flat-out ignoring the CIWS. Tasha could've sworn she scored a hit or two, but it seemed her eyes were playing tricks on her and the enemy kept coming.

"No good!" declared Ric before it entered melee range. "Split up! Try to flank!" The three pilots shot off in different directions as the enemy suit contorted itself through the crossfire, dodging some bolts and deflecting others with twin beam-shields, emerging without a scratch on Trey's tail. As Trey pulled evasive maneuvers, Ric ignited the saber he had been keeping ready and dropped into pursuit of the enemy. Trey was doing his best to stay out of range of the two-handed sword and was doing a pretty good job of it until the enemy unlimbered a MP cannon of its own, bringing it up under its left arm.

"Oh, shit!" he cursed, barely throwing himself out of the way of the shot. "Tasha, a little help!" He rolled, another MP blast passing just by him. "Setting up a pick!"

"Got it!" she replied, Trey sending her his intended path, showing up as a green dotted line on her main view, and she rocketed off on a crossing path, briefly checking to make sure her chest cannon was ready.

"Now!" ordered Trey, throwing himself straight down in a dive as Tasha cut loose with her cannon right where he would have been. The idea was to intercept the pursuer with the blast and she thought it had worked until the target disappeared, scattered into loose particles by the beam's pressure wave and she realized she was only looking at an after image. Then she realized that the enemy was right above her, poised for a crushing overhead strike with its sword. She loosed a wild shot from her AM cannons and reversed at full burn, the laser-edged sword scratching a groove down the front of her suit, but causing no serious damage. Now it was her turn to fly evasive.

She finally got a good look at it though, close as she was, that bright light of its wings, the strange blurriness, and high speed had prevented before. Ric had been right – its colors were more muted than the previous enemy. Its torso was mostly blue above, at the shoulders and wrists, and red at the abdomen. It had beam boomerangs extending from its shoulders, and red wings that were the source of its more obvious light 'wings' that curiously reminded Tasha of a butterfly. It had a wide golden crest on its forehead, and its faceplate had two strange streaks that made the machine look like it was crying blood. She also noted the rifle stowed behind its waist and what might have been a mounting point for a physical shield on its left arm.

"I've seen that suit before," said Trey, trying to ward it away from Tasha with a rifle volley. Ric was still chasing it, lunging with his beam saber when he saw an opening or otherwise using his shield-cannon to cut off its attempts to flank Tasha. "It led the ZAFT charge at Heaven's Base, I saw the footage. They've put us up against the Destiny!"

"Oh, you've _got_ to be fucking kidding me!" cursed Ric, as the Destiny deflected another lunge at the last second with a beam shield. "I've heard stories about this thing. I've heard stories about this thing – it cut up those big fucking Blue Cosmos suits like they were made of butter." He tried to hit it with his AM cannons but the Destiny simply flipped over the shells and began bearing down directly on Trey.

"Okay, new plan," Trey began, but was cut off by a blast of the Destiny's MP cannon. "Christ! That was too close," he continued. "Use swords. Hit and run, see if you can't follow each other up. I'll keep him busy."

Tasha holstered her rifle and withdrew her saber. Ric was already charging in, Trey doing his damnedest not to get bisected by the sword, deflecting blow after blow with his shield. It was a good thing the Blood Dagger was more responsive than the Windam. They'd be dead already if it wasn't. But the Destiny was still reacting too quickly for them to damage it. It backhanded Ric away with a beam shield almost condescendingly, diverted Tasha with a kick, then continued to pursue Trey, as if it realized who tended to give orders.

"Uh-oh," murmured Trey. While he managed to block or deflect away most of the blows, he was still getting scored by the energy-edge of the Destiny's sword and getting pummeled by the sheer force of the blows. He was having a hard time countering the constant attacks and the pounding was starting to wear him out. Warning lights were starting to flash and, for every attack that Ric and Tasha were able to mount, the Destiny took two swings at Trey. "Uh, guys, it's lighting up like Christmas in here. I can't lose him and can't keep this up much longer!" he reported.

"We're trying, but he blocks too fast for us to do anything more than spark his shields!" shouted Tasha, as the Destiny let her lunge skid across the surface of its shield before grabbing her Dagger at the wrists and hurling it into Ric's with a jarring impact and sending them tumbling. By the time they had recovered, it was too late. The Destiny had broken through Trey's defense, stabbing straight through his weakened shield and severing the arm, then, with a sweeping horizontal slash, bisecting the Blood Dagger at the waist. Battery compartment compromised, the mortally wounded MS violently detonated.

"Son of a _bitch_!" roared Ric, putting all his momentum behind a diagonal slash that the Destiny stopped cold on one of its shields. "Tasha, hit him!"

She came up from behind, thrusters at full burn, trailing her saber out to her right, intended to slice and keep moving. That's not how it worked out, as the enemy suddenly stopped resisting and used Ric's force to put the Blood Dagger in her path instead. She cursed, veering off, and the Destiny used the opportunity to kick Ric in the chest, wrecking his the integrated cannon. Ric started blasting at close range using his shield-cannon, preventing the ZAFT suit from retreating and forcing it to deflect the beams with its shields. Tasha dropped in from above, saber pointed directly down to stab through the head, but the damn thing deflected a bolt right at her, destroying her right hand and the beam saber it held. She would have to abandon the shield to draw another saber. Then Ric's shield cannon reached its limit of shots and overheated, freeing the Destiny to attack. It brought up its MP cannon, loosing a blast at Ric before retrieving its rifle and forcing Tasha to defend herself from several well-placed shots. The last round wrecked the cannon built into her shield. Discarding it, she drew her own rifle to try to make an opening for Ric. Before she could fire, though, it opened its throttle, rocketing toward her and bringing up its sword. Having cast away her defense, she evaded the first swing, an upward diagonal slash, but the move left her open and she was impaled through the head by a lightning-fast lunge. Leaving the sword in, the Destiny boosted straight down, dragging the weapon with it and slicing Tasha's machine in half.

"FUCK!" she screamed in frustration, slamming her hands onto the control console. The simulator's screen flashed and began to display a feed of Ric dueling the Destiny alone. A side screen displayed her stats along with a big, red 'KIA' message. She always hated this part. In an attempt to prevent interference by defeated team members, the doors to the simulator cockpits did not open until the mission was complete. So she was forced to impotently watch the remainder of the fight and stew on her defeat. She was fuming. Her hands hurt.

For what it was worth, Ric was putting up a good show. As much as it pained her to admit it, Ric was a better pilot than her. She'd never tell him to his face, though. He'd be insufferable for weeks. In public, she rated him 'passable' whenever anyone asked, just to piss him off. Of course, the last time she had done it, he'd retaliated by mixing coffee grounds into her shampoo. She had yet to figure out how to get him back for that. Her hair still smelled like burnt coffee.

She removed her helmet, then slouched back in her seat to watch the remainder of the fight. Ric fought valiantly, but without anything to divide the Destiny's attention, he was in trouble. He was surprising her, though, avoiding deathblow after deathblow as the enemy suit pressed its advantage. Forced on the defensive, he shunted an overhead blow off to the side, counterattacking with a quick lunge before deflecting the Destiny's return blow with his shield. The enemy immediately brought around another blow, a downward diagonal cut that would have removed the Blood Dagger's right arm, but Ric opened a little space and parried the blow with surprising skill, then smashed the Destiny back with his shield, finally landing a hit. It did not seem impressed, returning with a furious flurry of strikes that Ric had to sacrifice his shield to defend. Now shieldless, he drew his second saber and started dancing away from the other's two-hander, darting in with vertical slashes and lunges that were blocked on a beam shield. Inevitably, Ric made his mistake, putting too much momentum behind a lunge that was pushed aside, leaving the Blood Dagger's back vulnerable. The Destiny was quick to seize the opportunity, sweeping it's blade around over-top Ric's futile defense and down to cleave straight through the cockpit from behind. But Ric managed to twist the Dagger around and fired the AM cannons straight up. The two shells, fired so close that their fuses did not arm, impacted the flat of the Destiny's sword in two places, the first one causing it to flex back and then the second as it returned. The blade exploded into fragments, showering both suits in shrapnel and bringing combat to a halt for a few brief heartbeats.

"HA! Suck on _that_!" Ric gloated. Then the Destiny reached out and blew up his head. He had time to shout "What!?" before it annihilated him away with its MP cannon. Mission Failed. All pilots KIA.

"Are you fucking serious?" he said, storming out of his simulator pod. "It was just like _poof_, no more head!"

"Palm-mounted energy projectors," explained the sim tech who had run the test. He did not come out and tell them in person, but opted to remain in the observer's booth and use the external address system because being in close proximity to three angry pilots tended to have negative consequences for one's health.

"Why don't you come down here and say that to my face, you bastard, and I'll show you what I think of your bullshit!" This, obviously, only convinced the tech to stay right where he was, safe behind shatter-proof glass. Since the man refused to come down, Ric showed his displeasure anyway by tearing off his helmet and, in an inarticulate rage, hurling it at the booth's window. If the glass hadn't been there, the improvised projectile would have impacted the hapless specialist right between the eyes. As it was, the helmet hit the window with a loud _CRACK_ and caromed off behind one of the pods, leaving a small shatterpoint to mark where it had been. The tech yelped and ducked behind his console.

"What the hell is wrong with you!?" shouted Tasha.

"Wrong with me!? Something's wrong with _you_! Or has it not sunk in yet!?" Ric retorted. Without the helmet, the other two could finally see his face, drawn tight from both adrenaline and fury. His pupils were dilated, hazel irises barely visible, and his reddish-brown hair, once meticulously styled, was now plastered to his forehead with sweat. The combination made him look dangerous and unstable. Which, at the moment, he was.

"And just what is that supposed to mean!?" Tasha yelled back. "Look, I'm about done putting up with your-"

"You don't have a fucking clue!" interrupted Ric harshly.

Trey stepped between them. He didn't raise his arms or otherwise try to keep them separated. He was merely providing a buffer. Trying to intervene physically would only make things worse.

"Ric, that's enough," he said. "You're way out of line. We're teammates and we ought to at least act like it. You too, Tasha."

The former was having none of it. "Fuck you, Trey. You don't get it either!"

"Fine," said the taller pilot coldly. He was trying very hard to keep anger out of his own voice and did not entirely succeed. "Then enlighten me."

Ric pointed at Tasha. "I know you wanted to know why I was distracted when we got back from Panama." Tasha bristled, mostly because she already wanted slug him for being a jackass and secondly because of his derisive tone. Ric rolled on, unperturbed. "Well, here ya go. Three mobile suits leveled Panama. Trashed it. _Three_." He waved a hand with three fingers outstretched to emphasize his point. "And while I realized from the beginning that this mission was gonna be tough, I don't think _anyone_ really had it figured. Twice now, we've outnumbered our enemy in the sims three-to-one. Three elite Earth Forces pilots to _one_ high-powered Gundam. And ya know what? We didn't just lose. We were hopelessly, hilariously outclassed. We got stomped so bad, we shoulda just shot ourselves and saved them the ammo! If it's this bad against one, going against three is suicide! That is _not_ what I joined up for!"

"So you're a fucking coward, then, Duomo!? We're soldiers, and soldiers have been dying for thousands of years and will keep doing it for thousands more after we bite it! What makes you so fucking special!?" Tasha snarled.

"I knew this job had risks going in and signed up anyway! I busted my ass to be good enough to get here! Good enough for top of my class in basic, good enough for top percentile in every eval they threw at me, good enough to kick the ass of enough pilots for them to want me in this stupid unit! Good enough that they gave me this fucking prototype and told me to go take down a bunch of fucking terrorists! But I realize now that there is _no_ 'good enough' to get past that!" he roared, pointing at the sim pod and a freeze-frame of the Destiny still on-screen. "And when we go out there for real, we don't get to come back and listen to the pricks in the booth critique our performance and we don't get to try again. And then they'll just send some more poor bastards to get slaughtered. _We can't compete!_"

"Ric, that's pretty close to treason," warned Trey quietly.

"I don't care about your fucking politics! I joined up because I wanted to do my part and because I thought mobile suits were cool, alright? I actually looked forward to the danger! But I wanted to _live_, and now we're being set up to throw our lives away!"

"Ric!"

"Don't you get it yet!? If you don't, you better wake the fuck up!" He stepped right up to Trey, not caring that he had to crane his neck to make eye contact. "Cause if we're called out there…" Ric emphasized his next few words by stabbing at Trey's chest with his index finger and growled: "We. Will. Die." Fed up with talking, he then stalked out of the simulator room. Once the door had sealed, the area was suddenly very silent and the exhaustion hit Tasha like a wave; it seemed Ric had taken all the fight out of the room with him.

"He's going to get his stupid ass thrown in the brig," she observed in a subdued voice.

"Yeah," replied Trey quietly.

"But he had a point."

It took Trey several seconds to respond. He swallowed uncomfortably. "Yeah. He did," he finally admitted, eyes never leaving the closed door.

* * *

**A/N: I was a good amount into this chapter when I heard that Monty Oum had passed. For those of you that haven't heard of him, he was a virtuoso animator, the mind behind _RWBY_, _Dead Fantasy_, and _Haloid_, as well as doing work on the latter seasons _Red vs. Blue,_ and I recommend you check out everything. As a longtime Rooster Teeth fan, I feel like I got to know him through what he allowed us to see: his body of work, his appearances on the podcast and other live action work, in the interviews and panels he gave, and through the stories of his friends, coworkers, and other RT community members, though I was never privileged enough to meet him personally. He was a major inspiration, not just creatively but also with his work ethic (seriously, he was almost a robot at times and he loved every minute of it), and I was surprised at how hard the news hit me, even at this distance. I couldn't and still can't imagine how those close to him must feel. If, through some freak of probability, someone close to Monty ends up reading this, I can only offer my condolences and hope that things are going better/will get better soon. In the release that broke the news, the RT staff and Monty's family requested that, in lieu of flowers or other such things, those that wish to honor him would instead do something creative and add something to the world. So I'll relay that challenge to you, dear reader - if you've got a fic languishing without an update, go and update it. If you've got a story idea, get writing, play with it, and make something out of it. If you've got a song rattling around in your head, grab an instrument and play it. If you don't know how to play an instrument, take some lessons. We can all help make the world a more imaginative place.**

**~Lasry**


	8. Phase 07: Tough Questions

AUGUST 1, CE 74

The desert city of Banadiya resembled more than anything a ruin, a remnant, like so many other sites, of a civilization that had fallen into the dusts of history. Of course, this was only from a distance. It was considerably livelier up close, if just as dusty as the antique settlements that wasted away out in the desert. And while it might have been a 'city' in local terms, it fell more into the category of a town, though one that had overgrown itself somewhat. Compared to a true city like London or Washington or even the rebuilding Berlin, Banadiya was much, much smaller. But if one had never seen such places, they could be forgiven for making the mistake. The main plaza had a bustling market, street-side food stands did regular business, and shops and stores abounded, from small hole-in-the-wall resellers to spacious, well-lit retailers that lined the main streets. Indeed, if one stuck to the main streets, they might never see the more rural aspects of the place, as all the major thoroughfares were all paved and maintained by city employees and watched over by uniformed police. It had enough modern amenities (Internet, hotels, restaurants, and the like) at reasonable enough rates that it wouldn't be too bad a place to conduct business. The locals seemed to do well enough at that. But venture into the dirt backstreets and alleys and the city changed utterly. Here, one could see the damage of successive occupations: crippled beggars, ruined buildings, smoke stains and bullet holes, trash and vermin. Here, rather than wander about an open market, people moved quickly, purposefully, heads down and eyes always searching for a threat. The population was much less dense – people preferring to stay indoors and out of the way – and the atmosphere much quieter and much warier. The business in this part of town were of a different type than the commerce on the open streets. Transactions were conducted behind closed doors, usually in the company of one or more armed guards. Names were mostly false and, even so, seldom exchanged. Payments were always in cash.

A man, tall and broad-chested, moved carefully but quickly down the street towards a large warehouse. No one recognized him, a new arrival, and various watchers took note, though none had business with the stranger. But in case they did in the future, they would know of him. His skin was brown, marking him as a native of North Africa or the Middle East, unremarkable enough considering where he was, and well-cared for. His hair was black and wavy, pulled back in a short ponytail. Also relatively unremarkable. He wore sunglasses despite the shade of the buildings. He wore a navy blue casual jacket of a lightweight fabric open over a white cotton shirt, plain khaki pants, and black leather work boots, all of quality make and good fit. In his right hand he held a black briefcase. His left was empty. He was not obviously armed, though perhaps concealed a shoulder holster. Wise.

His pace was confident, declarative, his demeanor was considered and, while not outright threatening, imposing. The few people in his path instinctively got out of the way as he approached. He was met at the door of the warehouse by a man with an assault rifle slung across his chest and the two briefly spoke in the Arabic dialect of the region without flaw or accent. The guard then stepped aside, allowing the stranger to enter and escape the public view.

Once the door closed behind him, the man reached up and removed his sunglasses, carefully tucking them into an interior pocket of his jacket. He was now standing in a small vestibule with two doors, one leading to a few offices and the other out into the body of the warehouse itself. Both were guarded. There were a couple of expensive stuffed chairs here, contrasting quite severely to the run-down exterior of the building and the condition of the streets outside. The stranger took one, finding it quite comfortable, and settled in to wait. He was a few minutes early and it did not take long.

"I must admit I didn't expect to see _you_ out here again," said the man in the office. He, too, was of Arabic descent, and was shaven bald with a brown goatee and not a trace of stubble anywhere else. He wore expensive, but understated, clothing, unadorned gold jewelry and sat behind a desk of solid oak, stained dark. The room was comfortably carpeted and a small painting hung on each wall, original canvases, elegant still lives and landscapes. An elegant bronze sculpture, a bit less than a foot tall, sat on the corner of the desk. Facing the desk were two red leather wingback chairs, old and supple to the touch.

"Please, sit," said the man. "It seems we have much to discuss. The last time you were here, you and your Desert Dawn friends were interested in 'tapping' some of my 'water.' But if I do recall, the Dawn disbanded some time ago and you had left even before that. Is there another menace that requires the Dawn to return, then? Or something else, perhaps?"

"I am here representing a different client," the stranger said. "And I do not seek water, I seek information."

"I'm sure you're aware, but _that_ is quite a bit rarer than water."

The stranger patted his briefcase. "I'm quite aware."

"I never did quite believe you were one those part-timers. Though I'm sure they benefitted from your presence."

"I had my reasons."

"We all have reasons."

The 'water'-dealer scrutinized the face of the man across from him. It had been a few years since their last encounter and since then the man had developed a few fine worry lines around his eyes and on his forehead. Not unexpected. His facial expression was carefully neutral and his eyes were bright, intelligent.

"They needed my help," said the man calmly.

"True," the dealer replied.

The man picked up his briefcase. "I assume you still accept Alliance dollars?" he asked, tactically steering the conversation back to its previous topic.

"Of course," remarked the dealer, as the man sprung the latches on the case. "Though, I'm doing more and more business in Orb currency these days. Seems to hold its value better."

"Quite," said the man, presenting a banded stack of bills. "Ten thousand, to show my client is serious. Depending on what you have to offer, I have been authorized to pay you more."

The dealer tapped the arm of his chair thoughtfully and did not otherwise move, but considered the offer. Then, he reached out and took the money, fanning through the stack to check the thickness of the bills and light-sensitive ink printed on them. Satisfied in his inspection, he met the eyes of the man across from him and raised an eyebrow.

"Very well, _Ledonir_, what would you like to know?"

If Kisaka had been caught off guard by being confronted with his name, he did not betray it. His expression did not change and his voice was as smooth and calm as before.

"Six months ago, a shipment of mobile suit parts on their way across the Atlantic was hijacked by pirates. I want to know who was responsible and where to find them." Orb Intelligence had run the serial number Murdoch had found on the ion pump. It, and the rest of its lot number, had been in that shipment.

Kisaka was supposed to have been back in Orb three days ago. His original orders were to reestablish contact with Sahib Ashman, retired leader of the Desert Dawn and an old friend, and see if he had noticed any suspicious activity that might indicate a hidden base in the desert. And while he enjoyed catching up with Sahib, he had learned that the only suspicious things were routine suspicious things perpetrated by ordinary criminals. It was fortunate that he had decided to stay an extra day and thus was still in Banadiya when Cagalli brought him up to speed.

The dealer chuckled. "You know I don't do that sort of thing."

Kisaka mutely passed him another ten thousand. The money in the case had been wired to him from a slush fund specifically set up for situations like this, just one of the many expenditures that made up the national defense budget. And considering the events of the past few years, the Treasury was more than willing to fund intelligence gathering.

"Like I said, I don't draw from those sorts of wells."

"But one of your competitors does?"

"Perhaps. But it's not a high-volume market in this region, understand? The big sellers are mostly on the western coast of the continent, not here in the north."

"The Atlantic ports."

"Precisely. And though we might not _trade_ in it up here, doesn't mean we don't hear about it." The dealer leaned forward, putting his elbows on his desk and steepling his fingers. "Now, in my dealings with some of my associates from the area, I happened to hear about a big influx of parts that flooded the market around the time you mentioned. Some _interesting_ pieces, too."

Kisaka closed the case, but did not lock it. "Can you be any more specific?" he asked.

"I only got secondhand rumors, but they did seem to focus on one captain in particular," said the dealer. He glanced down briefly at the case, the back up to Kisaka, who reopened it.

"And does this captain have a name?"

"I'm sure he does. I just need to remember what it is."

_Of course_, thought Kisaka. He withdrew three more stacks of ten thousand and placed them on the desk. "Might this help?" he asked quietly.

The dealer stroked his beard. Fifty thousand for a name, and perhaps more. He had no interest in protecting the pirate, didn't even do business with anyone who associated with him, but he was a businessman and shrewd negotiator with a reputation to protect.

"Ah. It's popped into my head." The dealer smiled a little. "Gruznich. Nasty reputation, that fellow. Seems there's always a new horror story every time he shows up."

"I've heard the name," Kisaka said. "Likes to kill captives to prove his point."

"Does he, now…" _And I wonder where Ledonir heard that?_ "Doing government work are you?" The dealer narrowed his eyes. "Trying to catch me out?"

Kisaka took a beat to reply, but kept his composure. "I'm only here for information. I'm not working for anyone who has jurisdiction to take you on. Not around here."

"So they sent you, because you _are_ from around here. Fair enough."

"I'll admit that there are a plenty of other people we'd be after before we'd consider your… activities." That was the truth. While the man may have been an arms dealer, he was well connected in his government, was a relatively trustworthy businessman, and maintained most of his scruples. He was a broker, a merchant, not someone who got his hands dirty. Though he had influence, he wasn't a direct threat to anyone and preferred it that way, since it allowed him to do business mostly trouble-free. He may have sold guns, but intelligence agencies, Orb included, would rather go after the people who bought them. The water-dealer was an intelligent enough man to realize that. He was also intelligent enough to realize that other arms dealers were not quite so civilized as he was. He hadn't confiscated Kisaka's gun for this reason, because the weapon was not intended for _him_, it was intended as protection from the prospective muggers and desperate junkies that lurked in the back alleys.

"Well I won't press you about it," the dealer said genially. "You, I suspect, have other priorities."

Kisaka said nothing.

"So what's your interest in Gruznich?" asked the dealer.

"My client has a few questions for him."

"Your _client_…" said the dealer, raising his eyebrows, "has their work cut out for them. He runs heavy. He started out with a couple of freighters but, from what I hear, now runs his own private battle group and isn't one for negotiating."

There was a glimmer of amusement in Kisaka's eyes. "Do you recall the last time we met?" The dealer nodded. "I introduced you to some new friends I'd made. Shortly after that, I ended up traveling with them for a while."

_Ah, so that's what he's implying_, thought the dealer. "Didn't stay very long, did they? But I'm sure they had places to be. ZAFT, too, I suppose, seeing as they up and left around the same time. I recall Alaska being nice that time of year."

"The weather can turn awful rather suddenly up there," Kisaka replied casually.

_Clever_, thought the dealer. _Considering it's that ship, he must be working for Orb._ "I've heard some interesting rumors about your friends since then, if you're interested."

"I'm afraid not. Hear it straight from the horse's mouth, you could say. Gruznich, on the other hand…"

"He takes his privacy rather personally. Doesn't let much slip. But I'm sure _someone_ around here…" The dealer gestured around the office. "Might be able to point you in the right direction."

"And how much would the fuel cost to get me there?"

"About fifty. You know fuel prices these days…"

Kisaka laid five more bundles of money on the desk.

The dealer smiled again. "There's a particular island in the Caribbean, named Amano, that's a lovely vacation spot. Privately administered of course, but the amenities are fantastic. Beautiful resort on the bay, room to park a ship or seven… I'd recommend it, but the guest list is _very_ exclusive."

"I'll be sure to make a reservation, then." Kisaka's eyes twinkled. "A pleasure, as always." He shut and locked the case.

"Have fun. Before you go, though, you wouldn't be interested in doing me a favor once you got home? I'd make it up to you, of course."

"This is still a one way relationship. I'm sure you'll be fine."

"Don't even want to hear it?"

"I've got business of my own, old friend."

"You and your commitments. But we should chat more often."

"We'll see. Goodbye, Malik."

"Farewell, Ledonir."

* * *

Safely back in his hotel room, Kisaka admitted that he'd probably gotten a bit carried away in the game of wits between him and Malik. Like Kisaka, Malik had been a native of Tassil, and while they had never been friends, per se, they had at least been _friendly_. Kisaka did not trust arms dealer for very good reasons and certainly did not trust Malik, but he was a bit more lenient with his old acquaintance. The man was about the only thing about Tassil that sustained Kisaka's interest. Tassil, which was little more than ashes now, burned down by Andrew Waltfeld when the man was still with ZAFT. Kisaka could not bring himself to feel upset about it.

He had a good view of the rest of Banadiya from his hotel room. When he had first looked on the city, he had been awed by its size and pulsating rhythm of life within, so different from his staid home village. He looked on it with different eyes now, or maybe eyes that now knew what they looked at. In the grand scheme of things, Banadiya meant little. It was not blessed with oil wealth or with strategic location on the coast or along a river. The one thing of importance in it was its iron mines and the city had essentially grown up around them, providing services and goods to the miners that worked the veins. It was now more-or-less self-sustaining, children growing up to work the mines or manage stores in town.

None of that had appealed to Ledonir when he had been a child, nor had becoming a farmer or goat herder and staying in his village. He had been a difficult child. His father had been killed by bandits shortly after Ledonir was born. Kisaka had only become more difficult, he supposed, after his mother died when he was ten. He would not give proper respect to tradition or his elders. He spent a lot of time away from home, exploring the hills and canyons and gullies mostly alone. He was seldom still and often escaped his chores.

If he had remained in Tassil or Banadiya, he would have made the choice that most shiftless young men made in this place: to pick up a gun. There wasn't much centralized authority in the region and as a result, banditry flourished and militant resistance movements hid out in the remote areas outside the city's influence. Occasionally a regime would fall and one of the resistance movements would stage a coup, and the standing army loyal to the old one would commandeer the equipment they'd been issued and form a new resistance. For civilians, it was often very hard to tell the difference between the army, militants, and unaffiliated bandits since the first tended to be corrupt and took what they wanted, the second tended to be ruthless and took what they wanted, and the third took what they wanted because it was in their job description. Even uniforms were no help, since unhappy or disillusioned soldiers walked off their posts and joined the roving bands. And they all bought from arms dealers. The Desert Dawn had formed to protect the region from occupation by foreign powers, but had disbanded with the end of the Valentine Wars, so now the only real protection Banadiya had was paid guards from the companies that owned the mine. Beyond making sure their ore shipments were secure, though, the guards generally left the city of Banadiya to fend for itself. Small wonder Kisaka had left as soon as he'd had the opportunity.

That opportunity had come in the form of a scholarship to a military boarding school in Orb. After his mother had died he'd left Tassil and gone to live with a distant relation in Banadiya, where he was enrolled in the only public school. He'd been a mostly indifferent student during that time of his life, but fortune smiled on him. Every student in the country was given an aptitude test at age twelve, and when he realized that it might mean he could leave Banadiya and Tassil, he'd put forth his full effort and scored very highly and soon was on a plane to a little island nation in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that he'd never heard of until the teacher had shown him the offer letter.

After a few days to adjust to his new life, it felt more like home than Tassil ever had and he'd thrived ever since. The restless young man found himself challenged for the first time in his life and rose to it admirably, learning the discipline and work ethic he had so disregarded in his old life, succeeding brilliantly in academics because he could see a future for himself now, rather than the humble life of a shopkeeper or a miner. He found himself fascinated by history and military theory, physics and astronomy, and graduated at the top of his class.

After becoming a naturalized citizen of his adopted country, he applied to Orb's national military academy and from there went on to a glittering career in the Special Forces. After rising to the rank of Colonel at the age of twenty-five, he was assigned to oversee the protection of Chief Representative Uzumi Nara Athha and his daughter Cagalli, becoming a confidant and good friend of the former and the bodyguard and surrogate brother of the latter. Then Heliopolis was attacked, and though Cagalli had been rescued safely, she refused to sit on the sidelines and pleaded to fight. Knowing that his hot-tempered daughter would go whether he allowed her to or not, Uzumi had asked Kisaka to keep her safe and away from anywhere the fighting might become total war. Against his better judgment, Ledonir had suggested Tassil. Andrew Waltfeld had a reputation as a commander that kept collateral damage to a minimum and the Alliance wasn't even in the theater, preferring to only bankroll a resistance that consisted of men from the surrounding villages armed with assault rifles and the occasional bazooka. Relatively low-intensity. Limited war. Deep down, Kisaka had actually wanted to liberate his birthplace. He did not foresee the _Archangel_'s arrival, of course. Tassil had been destroyed and most of its inhabitants had been incorporated into Banadiya when the Desert Dawn and the errant _Archangel_ forced out ZAFT.

With that, Kisaka considered paid whatever lingering debts he owed his birthplace. Though he spoke the dialect of Arabic native to the region just as fluently as he spoke the English and Japanese of his adopted country, knew the traditions and ceremonies of his village as well as he knew Orb's constitution, he prized the latter over the former. He had a different home now.

* * *

Lacus had been away from the Council for too long. There was still plenty of rebuilding to do in the PLANTs that required her attention. Despite the danger the warships would be getting into, she had still been rather reluctant to part.

"It just doesn't feel right for me _not_ to be on a warship while there's a crisis going on," she said to Kira just before boarding her shuttle. She would be escorted home by a _Laurasia_-class; the _Archangel_ and the _Diana_ would continue on to Earth. "I feel like I'm abandoning you."

Waltfeld, still playing the part of bodyguard, had chimed in at this point. "It's a feeling every commander knows. I wouldn't respect an officer who didn't feel that way. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is step back and let others face danger, but you just have to trust the people under you to do their jobs and everything will be fine."

"I appreciate the sympathy, General."

Andy had given a wan smile at this. "I've got the same problem, you know. Wish I'd brought the Gaia with me so I could help out."

Kira smiled. "I think we'll be able to handle it without you, Andy," he said.

"Well, don't count me out, kid. A desk job ain't stopping me from getting my flight hours in." Waltfeld smirked and gracefully bowed out of the conversation, stepping into the shuttle's cockpit and providing Kira and Lacus a little privacy.

Kira clasped her hand in his own. "We'll be fine without you here. Really," he said, then realized those words might be misinterpreted for the worse. "I mean," he hurriedly clarified, "I'll miss you of course and wish we didn't have to spend so much time apart, but we don't really need your help in combat. I mean, not that it's unappreciated or anything – "

"I think I understand," interrupted Lacus, smiling. Kira was always a worrier and had always been more comfortable with numbers than words. The result was a tendency to put his foot in his mouth. She thought it was adorable. "You have confidence in your abilities and will be glad I'm safe."

"Yes, that," said Kira, relieved. "Make sure you double-check your security. I want to help as well, and – "

"Kira, you will be busy flying a mobile suit and helping run the ship. You won't be able to go over my security plans."

"Oh. Right."

She kissed him on the cheek. "I'll be safer than you, probably. Be careful. I worry, too."

"Of course," he said, and returned the kiss. "It wouldn't do for the Chairwoman to be unhappy." He grinned and stepped back. "See you soon."

Lacus gave a little wave and stepped aboard the shuttle.

"We'll be clear to leave once Kira is off the deck," Waltfeld reported. Lacus nodded and strapped herself into the co-pilot's seat.

Soon enough, the young white-coat was safely cycled into the observation bay, where he watched the shuttle shrink into the distance until it was a mere speck that slipped between the stars and out of sight.

* * *

All of the pilots were gathered in the ready-room. Once the task force had received Kisaka's report, they unanimously came to the conclusion that Gruznich would be highly uncooperative. All the gun crews were standing ready and every mobile suit was prepped to launch once the two ships had broken atmosphere, even though there would still be a few hours of sailing to reach Amano.

It made Shinn antsy.

If he was honest, he wasn't quite sure how he felt about all this. Yes, he'd declined the honorable discharge he'd been offered shortly after Messiah. Yes, he'd been running training missions for seven months. But climbing back into the cockpit for real… it bothered him. He was unusually nervous, pacing around, readjusting the straps and seals on his suit, tracing the contours of his helmet with a fingertip, trying and failing to achieve the before-mission calm that he had once found effortlessly.

He was starting to get on the others' nerves. Heck, Shinn was getting on his _own_ nerves. He was being stupid, he thought. This wasn't going to be a particularly dangerous sortie. He'd prepared for open battles, prepared to outright kill and hadn't been this nervous. Sure, there had been a few butterflies, but he'd controlled them and had been fine, was even relaxed enough to read magazines before launching. But at the moment, reading was beyond him. He'd tried. After two or three minutes he realized that he'd read the same paragraph three times without actually taking it in, so he gave up. And now he was considering going back for it.

His first real sortie in months and he was acting like a cadet about to take his first solo flight! He'd sortied to protect the _Archangel_ over Copernicus, but he didn't really count that one as a full-fledged mission, not like this one. That had been mostly muscle memory: wake up, suit up, get out there. No time to think. But now that he'd been given a couple of hours to think of whatever he wanted, he kind of wished he hadn't. He was actually hoping for an emergency just to take his mind, paradoxically, off of his own mind.

It wasn't that he didn't want to take on this assignment, far from it: he was driven at a very personal level to see all this through and help however he could. And it wasn't like he hadn't known what this job entailed, either. But there were very real prospects of killing people, prospects that hadn't reared their ugly heads for seven months.

Shinn was an ace. He'd stopped counting exactly how many suits he'd shot down, but it was a high number. The number of people he had killed was surely less – but still plenty high. He'd always cared more for the former statistic, as most pilots did. His world was more pure that way – he fought contests of skill, proved that he was better, cleverer, stronger than his opponents. He wasn't in it for the kill, didn't need to worry about what happened to the other. All that mattered was who won the fight, which side had fielded the greater champion. In hindsight, Shinn could see how he'd been manipulated, how he'd been used and set loose by Durandal. An arrogant man who had run the war like a game, shifting and sacrificing his pawns to fulfill his arrogant future. How many thousands of lives were ruined because one man thought he knew better than everyone else, and was persuasive enough to make them believe it? How much destruction, how much death? How many had died because Shinn himself was arrogant enough to believe what Rey and Durandal had whispered in his ear? Getting played like a fool, it made him feel dirty, made him angry and ashamed at himself: for falling for it, for failing Stella and all the others he'd lost, for being too wrapped up in his own pain to see that which he was causing, for being too naïve to recognize what he'd become. For a lot of things.

For being a killer.

When all this was over, would he be a killer again?

The question settled in his veins like ice.

* * *

Amano Island was the sort of place that appeared on postcards, if anyone bothered to make any for it. It happened to be too remote to become a legitimate port and, once you got past the white sand beach, too rocky and jungled to make a resort practical. Its current tenants also tended to discourage visitors. Still, the water was a lovely shade of blue, palm trees swayed in the wind, and there was a magnificent bay: two densely forested peninsulas jutted out into the sea, creating an almost-lagoon. A textbook chokepoint, there was only enough room between them for one or two ships to pass through at a time. Once upon a time, pirates had made havens from the many small islands in the Caribbean Sea. Amano was but the latest, and Captain Lido Gruznich was quite proud to be carrying on the tradition.

The man himself was large and while he was certainly muscled, he did not put much effort into his fitness, leaving him the shape of a brick: wide and flat. His hair was iron-grey, buzzed close to his head, and his eyes were watery and bloodshot, souvenirs of chronic alcohol abuse. His arms bore numerous tattoos and scars of varying vintages; some were very fresh and overlapped older examples. He went armed at all times, a pistol holstered on his hip and a shotgun slung across his back. The dossiers from Orb and ZAFT intelligence had enumerated a long history of cutthroat dealings, an endless string of hijackings, murders, and arms deals that he'd parlayed into his own pirate empire. There was a longstanding bounty on any information that led to his capture, but so far he was only known to have a base somewhere in Atlantic Federation territory, where any capture operation by a foreign power would be politically risky at best. The Feds, for their part, steadfastly refused to divert resources from their operations to hunt him down, discouraged by unpalatably high casualty projections. Not that they announced this – Orb Intelligence had "obtained" some internal Federation memos on the subject.

The main reason for their reluctance was Gruznich's fleet: eleven ships that, together, carried enough firepower to level a city. Most had started life as commandeered merchant ships, but four were once Alliance warships, three destroyers and a cruiser seized from ZAFT surface forces after the latter had captured them in-port. Each ship had been extensively modified – more powerful engines, heavy armor, and the biggest guns they could carry. He had also acquired eight GuAIZes in the raid that netted him the warships, and retrofitted them with modern systems and weaponry. It was, in fact, an excessive amount of firepower, roughly equivalent to that of a military task force, and above and beyond what was necessary for raiding merchant shipping. It seemed the man simply enjoyed blowing things up – the more valuable, the better.

So when the _Archangel_ and the _Diana_ sailed right into Amano bay, he could barely contain his glee.

Gruznich had seven ships, including his flagship, in plain view at the back of the bay. The remaining four were in camouflaged pens built into the mountains that sheltered the harbor. He had but to give the word and they would launch, surrounding the two intruders and blocking the exit. Trying to fight through that blockade wouldn't be an option, for not even the famously resilient _Archangel_ would be able to survive a simultaneous salvo from his eleven ships.

If his greed had not overtaken his common sense, he might have wondered why the two ships had chosen such a tactically suspect position. He remembered only that the _Archangel_ was reckless enough to take on both ZAFT and the Alliance simultaneously. He did not remember that the ship was brave enough, clever enough, and tough enough to face those odds and come through time after time after time. He might not have been so eager to push them into a corner otherwise.

There was a minute or two of uneasy calm, the two sides alike in waiting for the other to twitch. But the _Archangel_ and the _Diana_ made no move to deploy their weapons. Instead, they opened with a message:

"_Archangel_ Actual to Lido Gruznich, request to conduct negotiations, over."

Gruznich had been lounging in the captain's chair of his flagship. Now he sat bolt upright, eyes narrowed critically at the two vessels in the middle of his harbor, assessing them for entry points. The noose he'd been preparing was ready to close; all he had to do was confirm the order with the press of a single key. Still, he decided to play along, if only because it entertained him. He walked over to the comms station, ignoring the officer already in place there, and grabbed the microphone.

"This is Gruznich," he rumbled across the airwaves. "I'm listening. What do you want?"

"A specific shipment of mobile suit components," was the even reply.

"And you think I have it?"

"We think you know who does."

The pirate lord let out a short, barking laugh. "I'm afraid my business transactions are confidential. Customers need a dealer they can trust, after all."

There was a pause as the other deliberated. After a minute of breathless anticipation on Gruznich's part, they replied.

"State your price."

There it was. He laughed, full-throated, long and low, making sure to broadcast his genuine amusement to the opposite ship. True, he might have been exaggerating it a little, but that only made it more fun, to play it up. He always enjoyed the rush, the feeling of power just before he turned a situation upside down. He took his sweet time walking back to the command chair, grinning like mad all the while.

"My price?" he asked, casually tapping the 'Enter' key to confirm the orders for the four hidden ships. Done, he turned to stare out of the window and directly at the _Archangel_'s bridge.

"My price is everything you have!"

* * *

Ric had made a few exceptionally bad decisions in his life. There was that bike ramp he'd built in middle school out of wood scraps, there was the time he'd accidentally pissed off a professional boxer at a gas station, there was the time he'd gotten _really_ drunk when celebrating his academy graduation… and that was about the list. Fairly short, for which he was thankful. Those were the unequivocally bad decisions, anyway; he was increasingly inclined to add 'joining the military' to that list, since this mission was going to shit in rather spectacular fashion. Topping them all, though, was his current predicament. While he'd had plenty of misadventures in uniform, none of them had ended up with him in the brig. Up to this point, anyway.

After storming out of the simulators, he tore through the ship, searching for something that would make him stop thinking about what had just happened. Something to get all of the mistakes and miscalculations out of his head, to silence the grueling whisper of _Not Good Enough._ Something to, maybe, stop him thinking about much of anything for a while. But he hated the taste of cigarettes, couldn't stand the thought of a video game at the moment, books were too peaceful, playing cards too social, music too fleeting, and he _certainly_ didn't need a workout considering what he'd just been through. That left alcohol. As luck would have it, one of the cooks had stashed a half-liter of vodka in one of the galley cabinets, to which Ric had helped himself with a long pull before wandering off to the firing range. By the time he had reached it (a feat in itself, since he hadn't quite learned the ship's layout yet), he'd gone through quite a lot of the bottle.

It was at this point his memory went fuzzy – the sudden influx, coupled to his exhaustion, meant the booze hit him all at once like a brick. He remembered arguing with the range gunnery sergeant about something. The gunny had gotten right in his face and shouted at him, as they were wont to do, and Ric had shouted something incomprehensible back. The next thing he remembered was trashing his own quarters, just throwing things around randomly and making a mess. He remembered wanting to climb into his real Blood Dagger and the head mechanic refusing to even let him on the hangar deck. At the time, it had been very important to him to get in his mobile suit and launch, and when he was refused, he'd tackled the head mechanic because he had to, _had_ to get his Dagger in the air. It was more important than anything and everything else, he wouldn't let anything get in his way, because it was so incredibly important and if they'd just let him go climb in it would be so easy…

Then some marines grabbed him. He'd struggled, but apparently they'd managed to bundle him off to the brig and then tossed him into a cell to sober up.

Doubtless Halley would have been informed by now. Ric was halfway surprised that the captain _wasn't_ here glowering at him as he woke up. They'd been at odds since they'd embarked; Ric figured that his CO was just waiting for the chance to dress him down in excruciating detail. Ric was expecting to be berated, insulted, chastised, threatened, and generally shouted at, and then he would probably be grounded, maybe even court-martialed. Certainly, his career prospects were down the tubes, but he'd take a dishonorable discharge or prison time over a death-by-Gundam, easy. Ric saw it as a silver lining because, though it would probably ruin his life in the long run, 'probably ruined' definitely beat 'none' on the life-having scale. At least he'd _have_ a long run to worry about. Of course, that depended on getting off the ship, and with his luck, the _Odysseus_ would catch a beam right in the reactor and explode with him still locked in this cell. His last thought before dying would be: _Oh, for fuck's sake – _Then he'd be incinerated or irradiated or mutilated or…

Captain Halley entered the brig during Ric's contemplation of his gruesome and undoubtedly inevitable demise. It took the bedraggled pilot a moment to look up and realize that he was no longer alone.

"Oh," Ric said flatly. "I was wondering when you'd show up."

Halley merely stared at the man behind the bars, rumpled and unkempt where the officer was immaculately groomed, his uniform clean and crisply creased. If anyone had been watching, they would have been shocked at the contrast. But no one was.

The pilot sat up on his cot, glaring mutinously through the bars. "Come to gloat, _Captain_?"

Yes, Ric was angry. It made his hangover throb, but he couldn't help it – the man was so put-together, so _superior_, that Ric couldn't help but loathe the sight of him. "Well, get on with it, then! It's not like I'm going anywhere!"

Halley still waited. He seemed to be evaluating the younger man, trying to find insight on him through observation alone. Finally, he deigned to speak.

"I'm not here to gloat, Ric," he said softly.

"What happened to 'Lieutenant Duomo'?"

"I don't believe he is present. The only person I see in here is Ric."

The pilot took a moment to process this. "Fuck off."

Halley just shrugged and remained exactly where he was. Ric flopped back down on his cot and rolled to face the wall, determinedly ignoring the recalcitrant Captain. Edwin Halley, however, was willing to wait him out. Finally, after surreptitiously checking several times to see if the man had left and finding that he had not even _moved _over the course of an hour, Ric let out a frustrated sigh and rolled back over.

"Fine." Ric suddenly seemed very tired. "What do you want?"

"To talk."

"Well, you're doing a goddamned fantastic job so far!"

The captain only now moved for the first time, stepping back and leaning against the wall across from Ric's cell door. "Allow me to rephrase. I wanted to talk as equals."

Ric said nothing in response, only glared daggers.

"Oh, come on. Would you have listened to _anything_ I said if I'd started talking an hour ago?" He paused, continuing to eye Ric critically as the pilot shifted in momentary discomfort. Halley waved a hand dismissively. "Of course not. You'd already made up your mind to be hostile, so I waited for you to get tired of manning the walls, so to speak."

"And I'm supposed to be, what, impressed?"

"If you want to be."

"Oh, _sure,_" Ric muttered.

Halley was unperturbed by Ric's temper. The man wore his discipline like armor, an almost physical component of his being that seemed to make the white Alliance uniform and gold bars shine just a little more brilliantly. It seemed to make his grey eyes bright and clear and his sandy brown hair to sit that much straighter on his head. It was enough that Ric wanted to push him into a mud-puddle and make him just as dirty as everyone else. But he was stuck in a cell, his options reduced to staring at his antithesis and venomous words that he knew would do no more than bounce off Halley's iron self-control. The smug, superior bastard.

"Ric, when I learned you were being assigned to this ship, I dug through everything I could find on you. I read your CSV; went through, in order, every mission you took part in – even tracked down your training evaluations. And you know what? You've impressed _every step_ of the way. Based on what I've seen, you're far more than just a good pilot, you're one of the best – _anywhere_." Halley paused and just watched Ric, an odd expression coming on to his face while he waited for the irascible pilot's reaction.

Ric had not expected praise. He was thrown off balance, his displeasure and frustration giving way to genuine anger almost before he realized it. "Don't you _dare_ come in here and lie to me," he snarled. "I know what you are. Flattering, cajoling, trying to grease me up and bring me around… I'm sick of it. Go ahead, _tell_ me I'm wrong. _Lie_ to me, tell me that all this can go away but you need me, what I'm capable of, and we'll be heroes for saving all the innocent little puppies and babies and their sweet mamas. Go on! _Say it!_" He was breathing hard, his pulse thudding in his ears. His hands were drawn in tight fists, knuckles white, and he paced the cell's length like the caged tiger that he was, from a certain point of view; a mostly-trained animal defying its master's whip.

Halley closed his eyes and let out a breath, his expression becoming pained. He opened his mouth to speak, but made no sound and closed it again. "Fine," the captain said finally, wearily. "You win." At this, Ric drew back like he'd been stung. Halley only slouched against the wall opposite the bars, yielding at last to some invisible weight. "I meant it, you know. And furthermore, I think you're still improving, getting stronger. But I won't deny that I'm trying to get you back in a mobile suit."

"It doesn't matter if I'm good or not. It's still a death sentence," Ric opined bitterly.

"You know what else I learned from your files?" Halley asked abruptly. Ric's only reply was to narrow his eyes, so the captain continued. "You're used to coming out on top. No matter what happened in the big picture, you pulled through pretty much every time. And when you couldn't, it ended up being inconsequential. _You're not used to failure_. Others have failed _you_: the Alliance, your commanders, your fellow soldiers, even your own equipment. But you've never had to face _failing_ _yourself_. But now you're being forced to stare it straight in the face."

Ric scoffed, but it only made Halley smile ruefully.

"You're talented and smart enough that you've made it here without more than some bumps. But now you've hit a wall your talent can't overcome and it makes you feel helpless, doesn't it?" he probed. "And if there's one thing a pilot _hates_, it's feeling helpless."

"Shut up," growled Ric as he stormed up to the bars. "Shut. Up. You don't have the _right_. You think you know what it's like to be helpless? Helpless is when you have to watch whole squadrons get wiped out because their fire support _doesn't exist_. Helpless is when the line _always_ breaks, _always_ collapses and flees to another so-called 'secure' position, no matter what you do or how well you fight. _Helpless_ is getting dumped in a remote, bombed-out firebase smack in the path of enemy advance and then _abandoned_! You don't know what it is to be _helpless_!"

"No. I suppose I don't," the captain admitted quietly. "I'm not going to pretend the Alliance hasn't earned every single iota of your distrust. And it is asking a lot from you now, loyalty and trust it has neither encouraged nor earned. You deserve better. So do Trey and Tasha and the rest of the crew." He looked down at his shoes. "I can't give it to them, or you, and I'm sorry. You have _every_ right to be upset." Halley looked back up and fixed Ric with his steely gaze. "Though your conduct yesterday was… unbecoming, regardless."

"That's it then? I'm getting thrown away now that I'm no longer _reliable_?"

"I'm not going to let you walk away and give up, not from this. For one, it's too important, but it's also because slapping you with a Dishonorable would not only be a colossal waste of ability and potential, but a grave disservice both to you and the military. You belong in a pilot's seat, Ric. You know that and so do I." Halley straightened back up to his normal posture, almost entirely the model officer once again, but for the melancholy softness around his eyes that still hinted at the honest, weary man he was underneath. "The odds on this mission were never good. But I honestly doubt we'll be able to track them down, at least not without Orb and ZAFT getting involved. And our chances will be a lot better with them on our side. You should consider that before writing us off."

Halley's watch chimed. The captain spared a quick glance at the message it displayed before once again devoting his full attention to the pilot in the cell.

"I'm needed on the bridge. You've got a few more days in here before I'll consider letting you out, but I'm more than willing to let you sit in there and stagnate while you decide whether or not you still want to be a pilot. Understood?"

"I got it," Ric said flatly. Halley scrutinized the pilot for a moment, nodded once, and left without another word.

Ric watched him go. It was the first time that anyone with gold bars on their collar had been truly honest with him, had considered his views valid, had conversed with him as an equal. It had never really occurred to him to think of Halley as another person; Ric had dehumanized him without realizing, had only thought of him in terms of his uniform, rank, and authority. He had dealt so often with officers that had been disgraces to their uniforms – some were willing to stab anyone in the back to make themselves look good to their superiors, or were Coordinator-hating fanatics that would neglect their obligations towards anyone who didn't fight for their 'blue and pure world,' or cowards, or just grossly incompetent. He'd even run into a special few that were all of the above. He'd thought Halley had been one of them, a fool who would sacrifice lives for his own ambition. But now… perhaps not. Perhaps Halley and Ric were more alike than the latter had ever thought. He wasn't at all sure how to feel about that.

Ric _was_ sure, however, that he still wanted to be a pilot. Piloting mobile suits was what he did best, almost his sacred calling. But could he fight for the Alliance that had dispensed of his loyalty? For the commanders that had squandered his trust? No, and if that was all there was to look forward to, he'd have taken the Dishonorable and been done with it. But it didn't come to that. Instead, what it came down to was this: could he trust Halley?

He decided the answer was _maybe_.

That was good enough.

* * *

The noose had closed. The _Archangel_ and the _Diana_ were now surrounded and staring down the barrels of entirely too many guns. What move could they make? If either ship tried anything, they would drown under the rain of high-explosive shells.

Gruznich, contented, waited for a signal of surrender. He did not get one.

"_Archangel_ Actual to Gruznich, offer to negotiate still stands."

He scowled. So they were cowards, then, trying to buy their way out of trouble. Well, they'd learn how things worked soon enough.

"Gruznich to _Archangel_, the only offer I will accept is unconditional surrender," he snapped. He _owned_ them now. They just had to figure that out. Again, he would go unsatisfied.

"_Archangel_ to Gruznich. No dice. Out."

Of course. Should he have expected soldiers to abandon their duty? In any case, it wasn't up to them. It was for situations like this that he had boarding craft. And the men to fill them, of course, but he was less concerned with them. Doubtless there would be casualties, couldn't be helped, but that only meant fewer shares to carve out of the take. He never got the chance to send the order, however.

As if on cue (and they were), five mobile suits rose straight from the sea, ascending from the foaming waves like vengeful pagan spirits. Two were customized GOUFs, but the other three were… _exotics_ – one gold, one red, one white and black and blue. Catching the armada completely unawares, every ship quite suddenly found itself held hostage by the overlapping field of fire that sprang into existence around them, a weapon zeroed in on each command bridge. All it would take to cripple the entire fleet's combat capacity was a single fire order to the mobile suits, and every CIC would be simultaneously obliterated. The ships were utterly incapable of preventing this for one very simple reason:

All the firepower in the world was completely and totally useless when pointed in the wrong direction.

* * *

It had been Mu's idea to hide underwater. Six hours out from the island, the pilots and officers had met in the _Archangel_'s briefing room, clustering around a few satellite reconnaissance photos, to plan the upcoming operation. It was immediately apparent that an assault would have been risky for the ships: they would be bracketed as they entered the harbor, and there was no guarantee they'd be able to capture Gruznich alive. Sending the mobile suits in from above would only result in radar detection and a firefight. And entering peacefully would undoubtedly see Gruznich turn on them and start shooting anyway, leaving the launching mobile suits vulnerable to being picked off as they launched from the catapults.

At this point, Mu had remembered playing cat-and-mouse across the Pacific Ocean with ZAFT submarine forces. The _Archangel_ had been forced jerry-rig a sonar unit and use it to locate the enemy by their engine noises. The pirates would no doubt have their own sonar arrays, so approaching submerged was out – they'd be detected easily. But what if…

"What if we used a split approach?" he'd asked. Everyone else had turned to regard him curiously. "The two ships are big and loud enough that passing by would foul up any sonar, right? So if we towed the mobile suits _under_ them, they'd never know. Then, _Archangel_ and _Diana_ play bait and surreptitiously mark targets for the mobile suits to ambush if things go bad."

Yzak had gave him a sidelong glance. "Camouflage… I like it."

And that had been that.

* * *

This new development resulted in a tense silence aboard Gruznich's bridge as crewmembers held their breath in fear of provoking their captain's wrath as well as the mobile suits. For his part, Gruznich gritted his teeth, galled that he had been played. The lull was only broken by an incoming transmission from the _Archangel_.

"_Archangel_ Actual to Gruznich, the only offer we will accept is unconditional surrender."

Damn them! There would be no recovery from this humiliation – it would destroy his credibility, and in doing so, wipe away the fear and respect that tied his fleet together. He had fallen to an outside challenger, and that made him vulnerable to challenges from within as well. The glaring evidence that he could be beaten would encourage dissent and, eventually, mutiny. Whether or not he was still in control afterwards didn't matter. It would be bloody and the losses substantial, if he even managed to reclaim anything. Raw anger flared up in Gruznich as he began to realize that he had instantly become a captain without a fleet.

"What do you want from me?" he replied. His voice was strained, but he remained deceptively calm otherwise. It wouldn't do for the crews to start questioning his leadership now. No, he had to at least give the appearance of control, even if he was in a figurative free-fall at the moment.

"Six months ago, you hijacked and sold a shipment of precision mobile suit parts that was crossing the Atlantic. We want to know who you sold them to. We want their names, locations, everything you've got. Start talking."

It was time for a little brinksmanship. "And if I don't?"

"Then we'll ask someone lower on the food-chain." For additional emphasis, the white GOUF lashed out with its heat-whip and neatly carved away the array of antennas mounted above the bridge. The glowing lash was only a scant meter away from burning through _him_ as well. As far as messages went, it was pretty clear.

* * *

"What's going on, Myers?" asked Halley as he swept on to the bridge of the _Odysseus_. "Has HQ decided to reveal why they want us in GITMO?"

"Not yet, sir," Myers answered, shaking his head and standing up from the command chair so that his superior could take the conn. "But there's something going on that I thought you'd want to see for yourself."

The XO nodded to the sensor operator, who pushed a map of an island to the main tactical display. "You're looking at Amano Island, a suspected pirate hideout," the ensign reported. "We detected a lot of activity all of a sudden, like they're scrambling." He placed eleven yellow 'unknown contact' markers in a circle on the map. "Surface ships mostly, judging by the engine emissions. We're also seeing two space vessels," Two purple markers appeared in the center of the yellow circle. "Why they'd be here we're not sure. No friendlies are supposed to be operating in this area, and we're too far to get a clear enough signature to try matching to library."

Myers picked up where the ensign had left off. "It's a minor deviation, but we'll still be en route to GITMO even if we take the detour. Plus, we should be getting more detailed data as we get closer. Seems to me we've picked up on some sort of stand-off," he concluded.

Halley studied the map quietly for a few seconds, then nodded once. "Let's check it out," he said. "All crew to Level-1 battlestations. Prep the guns and the mobile suits, but leave the safeties on. Thomas and Vela are to launch when ready; they're to stay close to the ship and may only engage on my command. And get us in contact with GITMO, they'll want to hear about this."

The ship was ready for battle within five minutes, at which time the klaxons fell silent. Trey, in his Blood Dagger, held station to port, while Tasha flew starboard. The ship's Lohengrin turret, mounted on the _Odysseus_'s dorsal spine, had been deployed. Four single-barrel Gottfried emplacements complemented the heavy gun, two each to port and starboard. The Lohengrin turret could swivel to cover a firing arc of more than 180 degrees, and all five cannons could be oriented ahead toward a single target. A pair of 110cm linear cannons rounded out the ship's primary arsenal, mounted on the _Odysseus_'s flanks just ahead of the engine nacelles at the rear. Hopefully, the mere sight of the guns would be enough to discourage any conflict.

"Mobile suit contacts!" the sensor officer called out. "Popped up from nowhere! Matching to library… contacts designate Alpha, Bravo, match for GOUF. Contacts designate Charlie, Delta, Echo… no matches!" Five orange markers popped up on the screen, marked A through E, two of them tagged with 'GOUF' and the other three with 'Unknown.'

Halley grimaced. Even if it was classified to all hell, he at least had sensor profiles for the three stolen mobile suits. He didn't like unknowns, not one bit.

"Are we close enough to identify the ships?" he queried.

"Aye, sir. Matching… one ZAFT _Minerva_-class and… No way." The tech took a moment to double check the result, and when he continued there was a definite note of awe in his voice. "Sir, the other ship is the ONS _Archangel_."

"What are Orb and ZAFT doing in our backyard?" Tasha asked.

"Well," Halley said evenly, "let's ask them." He turned to the comms officer. "Ping 'em."

* * *

"Where are they?" Dearka asked from the _Diana_'s captain's chair. Since his ZAKU couldn't fly under its own power, he was fulfilling his other duty aboard ship, namely, deputy commander. While this was something he knew how to do, no one had expected an Alliance assault carrier to blunder into the Gundam task force's quick-and-quiet (for a certain definition of 'quiet') intel op.

"They're sitting just outside the bay entrance, sir, making sure we can't leave," replied Jon the sensor operator.

Luna's voice crackled in from the ready room intercom. "Did this just turn into an international incident?"

Dearka sighed. "Maybe."

"We could try just bluffing them," Shiho, also down in the ready room, said helpfully.

There was silence for a moment.

"Oh, screw it," Dearka said, resigned. "Just shoot for 'plausible,' Meyrin. Don't worry about 'believable.'"

Meyrin swallowed audibly. "Aye, sir."

* * *

"Attention, ZAFT and Orb ships, this is the Alliance Assault Ship _Odysseus_. You are trespassing in Atlantic Federation waters. State your business at once." Halley's voice was clear and authoritative.

This was only greeted with a brief burst of static.

"Attention –" Halley began again, but was interrupted.

"AAS _Odysseus_," cut in a nervous female voice, "this is the ZAFT Battleship _Diana_." The _Minerva_-class's blip on the tac-map was immediately updated by the sensor officer. "We cannot speak for the Orb ship, but we were not aware we had left international waters."

"Of course not," Tasha muttered sarcastically. She was not, however, patched into the open channel, so only the Alliance forces heard her.

Halley quirked a skeptical eyebrow, the effect of which was rather lost considering it was an audio-only channel. "Be that as it may, you have encroached on Federation territory. State your business," he ordered tersely.

The ZAFT ship hesitated briefly before finally replying. "Details are classified, I'm afraid," the female officer replied. Halley got the impression that she was quite young. "However, I can tell you that we are pursuing a wanted criminal."

A plausible enough explanation, in Halley's estimation. There had been rumors of pirates operating from Amano for a long time. Still, something was up. "Since when does ZAFT care about terrestrial criminals?"

Another hesitation from the other side. "Oceania Union requested our assistance."

Halley let off the transmission button and sighed. "They're certainly being careful with their words. And we've got nothing to indicate why Orb is here." He looked over to Myles. "Do we have a visual on the three unknown suits?"

"We do, sir."

Three picture-in-picture video windows opened on the main screen. Evidently, the Blood Daggers got the feeds as well, as Tasha made a sound over the comm that indicated she had choked on her own spit.

"Holy –" she started before dissolving into a coughing fit. "That's the computer monster! It's _real_?"

Trey had gone very, very quiet.

"Well, well," Halley murmured. "Looks like we've found the tip of the spear."

"Captain?" Myers looked confused.

Halley ignored him. "_Diana_," he transmitted, "what is the _Archangel_'s business here?"

Again, there was a moderate delay before a response came. "_Archangel_ is pursuing a wanted criminal."

"And you just happened to bump into each other and get surrounded?"

This time the delay was very, very long. "Affirmative."

"Very well, _Diana_," Halley replied. "You have no jurisdiction here. Leave this area immediately and return to international waters."

"_Odysseus_, be advised that we have a dangerous criminal currently in custody and by leaving the area we will no longer be able to prevent him from attacking."

"We'll handle it. _Odysseus_ out." He then let off the transmitter and leaned back into his chair. Myers goggled at him, and he could almost feel the disbelief radiating from the Blood Daggers.

"Surely you don't believe them, Captain?" his XO ventured.

Halley scoffed. "I don't buy it for a second. There's no way this is a coincidence. Everyone knows that Representative Attha and Chairwoman Clyne are close friends, even if their countries aren't. Both have spent time on the _Archangel_, and the _Minerva_-class plays the same operational role. They're working together, off-the-books I'm sure."

"You're not going to press them?"

"They were very careful to give us a plausible story, so we can't _prove_ anything. Nor do we have the leverage to force them to tell us what's really going on and we really can't afford to alienate other major powers at this point. If they wanted a fight, they'd win," Halley said calmly.

"But…" Tasha began.

"It's simple. They know we can't stop them in a fight and didn't want to make this an incident, so they gave us an out: they leave while we arrest the pirates. This way, the brass can't blame us for not stopping a non-hostile trespasser because we had to deal with more pressing matters. Hell, we might even get credit for bringing in wanted criminals. Meanwhile, they get to go about their business away from us. I assume they got what they wanted."

"Damn, sir. I'm never, ever playing poker with you," Tasha said.

"I prefer board games, Ensign. You and Lieutenant Thomas get into position to suppress the pirate ships if they make any funny moves." Halley then turned to Myers. "Looks like Duomo's getting parole. Put him in his Dagger and get him out there, we need all the cover we can get and all the brig space we have." Halley sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Comms, get me a line to GITMO. We'd better tell them what's going on."


End file.
